Viva Las Vegas

After a bit of a fishtaily landing at Las Vegas airport we set off in search of bright lights and big money.

To our delight, our hotel, "The Excalibur", actually turned out to be a full blown castle - complete with numerous turrets, fair maidens to greet us at the door, dragons and knights on horseback and of course, Merlin. Sound tacky - possibly, but by no means the tackiest hotel on the Strip. Seriously though - it was in a great location to allow us to explore the Strip.

First disappointment of the trip was the cancellation of our helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. The winds were too high for them to fly. Not to worry - we have it on very good authority that the Canyon is not going anywhere - so we will be back one day to see it.

To cheer ourselves up we booked tickets to a Cirque Du Soleil show 'Ka'. [Grant- Love was sold out...]. The show was amazing - acrobatics, fantastic staging, lighting and production mixed with dance and martial arts. The cast were everywhere around and in the theatre. This was a real highlight of our time in Vegas - we'll definitely keep an eye out for Cirque Du Soleil shows in the future.

Another highlight was the watershow outside the Belliago Casino. They have huge lake that spurts water into the air in time to music. Words cannot describe it adequately - and although it sounds naff - it was actually very cool.

So - after two days in Vegas here are some impressions we leave with:

• Bigger is always better - whether it be buildings, drinks, limos, belt buckles or cleavage. The only exception to this rule seems to be dresses and skirts, where less appears to be more.
• Tackiness is everywhere - but that is what makes it such an interesting place to visit. Favourite examples of tackiness include: hotels where everything is in 'theme' (for example in our hotel we ate at the Sherwood Forrest Cafe.... nice), waitresses in various revealing outfits, hawkers on the street, lions/flamingos/fish/celebrities etc in casinos to draw in the punters.
• People - we saw all shapes and sizes - including all the stereotypes you would expect. Stag dos and hens nights were everywhere - and today at one casino we saw 3 weddings in the space of 15 minutes.
• You can see the whole world there - in our time we visited New York, Rome, Venice, Paris not to mention Sherwood Forrest.
• There are no rules - anywhere.
• You can gamble everywhere, drink everywhere and get married everywhere.