Las Vegas, USA

Where sin is always forgiven


Gentlemen Club & Steakhouse
Mobile ad on a truck box promotes a Las Vegas men's club and steak house.
Lush welcome
One of the famous Las Vegas welcome signs, in this case, downtown.
pennies
Neon inside a casino on the Strip.
Vegas limo
Venice in Nevada
Gondolas docked at the Venetian, a Vegas hotel.
Bet on Green
Pedestrians wait for the end of the red light in front of a casino.
an american sphinx
Decorative statue of the hotel-casino Luxor.
Paris in Las Vegas
A copy of the Paris Las Vegas hotel's Eiffel Tower towers high above the Strip.
money making machines
Gaming machines lend some color and light to a grim casino gaming room.
Classic LV
Modelo promotes an exhibition of classic cars.
Flamingo
Bright neon from the Flamingo hotel-casino, one of the oldest in Las Vegas.
golden business
Lush decor atop Harrahs casino-hotel.
city ​​of light
Traces of traffic lights around the MGM hotel-casino.
Elvis clone
Elvis impersonator poses next to a Cadillac just like the one the idol drove.
Paris in Las Vegas II
A copy of the Paris Las Vegas hotel's Eiffel Tower towers high above the Strip.
Hotel-Casino-Zoo MGM
Spectators and caretakers observe a lion displayed by the MGM casino hotel.
The Strip
Strip perspective at dusk.
Self-Idolatry
Personalized registration honors Elvis Presley, a frequent presence in Vegas concert halls.
Lazio style
Wheel of Fortune
Themed slot machine featured in a casino.
Projected from the Mojave Desert like a neon mirage, the North American capital of gaming and entertainment is experienced as a gamble in the dark. Lush and addictive, Vegas neither learns nor regrets.

The twilight and bright colors of the Las Vegas Strip are installed as the fountains of the Bellagio rise again.

Like Danny Ocean's gang in “Ocean's Eleven”, an expectant crowd is dazzled by the graceful movements of the water.

The soundtrack, “Time to say Goodbye” (“With te depart”) by Andréa Bocelli and Sara Brightman, gives the show an extra touch of solemnity and dramatizes a moment of refinement and splendor that, despite being repeated until exhaustion, is always attended.

The lighting and flashes, fired over and over again, generate an interactive flash that surrounds the hotel and, for a few minutes, relegates the rest of the city to the background.

Once the show is over, the audience slowly breaks down and returns to the unpredictable reality of Vegas.

Passersby stop to admire the fountain choreography displayed by the hotel-casino Bellagio.

On the opposite side of the avenue, an army of Mexicans arranged along the sidewalk defies the surrounding glamor with tattered clothes and looks of unresolved misery: “… girls, girls, girls…” they suggest to passersby as they hand out small flyers of naked dream women, which the promotion offers starting at 50 dollars.

Os flyers rejects pile up on the floor. They form a carpet of lust that the locals are used to treading on. It's not a reason for big scandals, after all "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas".

One of the famous Las Vegas welcome signs, in this case, downtown Sin City. And of Forgiveness.

Ben “Bugsy” Siegel's Dream That Borns the Surreal City of Sin

Las Vegas's libertine fame dates back to its foundation in 1905, when the concentration of adult entertainment venues earned it the title of sin city and attracted people from all corners of the country and abroad.

The money, so often dirty but easy, the spirit of adventure that was inherent to it made this oasis lost in the arid vastness of the Mojave Desert – what the first Spanish explorers called Vegas (meadows) – the largest North American city founded in the century XX.

Today, despite being only 28th in terms of population (about 560.000 inhabitants), Las Vegas continues to occupy a place apart in the imagination of the Yankee nation and the world.

Bright facades of a stretch of the Strip.

It all started with one of the wild dreams of Ben “Bugsy” Siegel who risked his reputation and big money there by opening a gorgeous tropically inspired casino he called Flamingo. It went through a development phase around the Fremont Street, today a mini-sample of what the Strip has become.

Shortly thereafter, Las Vegas was introduced to a modernity heralded by the passage of the railroad linking Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.

It developed wildly thanks to federally supported construction projects and the legalization of gambling that allowed the state of Nevada and Las Vegas to cross the Great Depression smoothly, home to an Air Force base and one of the major highways originating from the region. Southern California.

Portico of yet another of the many hotel-casinos, Bally's.

With the onset of the Cold War, Nevada also received one of the most active nuclear test sites in the United States. At one point, explosions shattered the windows of Downtown casinos every month. The animation quickly was incorporated into the spirit “the show must go on".

Several official Miss Mushroom Clouds promoted the atomic facets of the state in radioactive tourist campaigns.

Every Friday, or even sooner if a holiday grants it, the long access roads to the game's capital fill with cars rushed by anxious drivers. There are many millions of gambling addicts in the United States.

Gaming machines lend some color and light to a grim casino gaming room.

Play for the Game, Fortune, Ruin, and the Lights of Fame

As soon as lives allow, a considerable part of it pours into your favorite roulettes, slot machines and card tables. There, possessed by greed, imprisoned in the cavernous and smoky rooms of the casinos, they lose track of time and reason.

From the most insignificant to the sumptuous – like the Wynn, the Bellagio, the Caesar Palace and the MGM – casinos decorate their walls with images suggestive of the winners. The newspapers advertise them, with pomp, day after day.

The bankrupts, these, only appear on the debtor lists of banks and credit companies, wanted by the police and, in extreme cases of despair, morgues.

Wheel of Fortune

There are still those who play “dollar for dollar” to fill an existential void. And those who can lose for pure fun because they are so rich that they are almost immune to damage.

Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Mulholand Drive lurk right next door behind the coastal slopes of neighboring California. The private jet trip from LAX is so short it's not enough to sip a bottle of champagne.

The stars enjoy proximity. Disembark to occupy reserved places ad eternum in the casinos' UltraLounges VIP.

Some of these stars – actors/comedians/singers – extend their orbit of fame to the city. As soon as they step onto the most prestigious stages of Vegas or film there, they become part of it.

That's what happened with Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Cher, Bette Middler, Celine Dion, Seinfeld or the Briton Elton John, all of them protagonists of competing shows that are always sold out.

Copy of the Statue of Liberty in front of the New York New York hotel-casino.

Even the famous Canadian neighbor Cirque du Soleil, both family and alternative beginnings, moved worlds and funds to respond to the recruitment of various corporations present in Vegas.

His local productions – Mystere, O, Zumanity, Ka, The Beatles-Love, Believe and Viva Elvis – are shown in six of the most important hotels in the city. They became, in a way, corporate themselves.

Las Vegas: A Crazy Recreation of World Famous Places

To make up for the lack of international references from Nevada, Las Vegas and, above all, the Strip, they were generated based on cloning and internal and external cultural franchises.

The Strip name itself was borrowed from the Los Angeles Sunset Strip. Over time, it replaced the original Arrowhead Highway.

Strip perspective at dusk.

Rather than annoying, these architectural and conceptual plagiarisms aroused enormous interest in an audience in which the little traveled Americans predominated.

They continued to be produced, always depending on the entertainment and billing capacity of this american playground.

The Strip is currently 6.1 km long, mostly filled with buildings and dramatic visual complexes such as Mandalay Bay, which marks its north end, and the futuristic Stratosphere that borders the south.

The imposing tower of the Stratosphere hotel-casino that houses a roller coaster at the top.

Between them, several of the largest casinos and resorts on the planet and 19 of the 25 largest hotels in the world, by number of rooms, stand out.

In the best years, almost 40 million people pass through the city.

The Shine of Sin City, Especially the Long and Luminous Strip

To impress them, the lighting of buildings and streets in general is so powerful that, seen from space, the Las Vegas metropolitan area turns out to be the brightest on Earth.

The Strip is also home to the two largest gaming companies in the world at the time of this writing: Harrah's Entertainment and MGM Mirage.

Traces of traffic lights around the MGM hotel-casino.

As a tribute to the brand's image, the latter has the luxury of showing lions, white tigers and other felines to the public in its megalomaniac installations.

We are almost 14.000 kilometers from France. Even more from Italy and Egypt. Even so, in Las Vegas, there is a reconstruction of Paris that includes the indispensable Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees and the Eiffel Tower.

A copy of the Paris Las Vegas hotel's Eiffel Tower towers high above the Strip.

A pyramid of Luxor protected by a sphinx stands out from the Strip.

And the mini-Venice of the Venetian in which subtly motor-powered gondolas circulate, to compensate, driven by formally dressed gondoliers, some opera singers.

Gondolas docked at the Venetian, a Vegas hotel.

As we cross the avenue, the fantasy continues, this time among Treasure Island's pirates and corsairs. It extends through the Greco-Roman imagery of the imperial Caesar.

Roman-inspired statues advertise the hotel-casino Caesars.

Whatever the space, the installations are refined and welcoming, cooled or heated by powerful air conditioning systems that protect visitors from the sweltering summer temperatures, when maximum temperatures easily reach forty degrees.

And the icy ones of winter, which brush against the zeros.

To everyone's amazement, in recent years, unbridled competition and the declining state of the economy of the USA (which at the time of creation of this text) melted the purchasing power of North Americans) generated hotel rates and prices, in a generic way, very accessible.

A panoramic view of the stretch of the Strip beyond the lake from the Bellagio hotel-casino.

Mainly from Sunday to Thursday, real institutions like the Bellagio and the Stratosphere offer divine rooms and meals at values ​​that are hard to believe. It is the Japanese, always wealthy, and the Europeans who benefit most and are surprised.

Elvis Presley, Celine Dion, Elton John, Seinfeld and All Others

Strip tours are no exception to the sphere of the cheap show. They serve as a room for countless imitators, promoters and artists who are often self-employed.

Elvis Presley is alive in Las Vegas. In addition to being present in certain downtown chapels, appears multiplied along the Strip.

It is rare for visitors to leave the city without a photo of themselves hugging a King in formal dress.

Look-alikes almost never charge like that on heads but are quick to suggest: “The would be just fine contribution … one of ten or even … twenty if you don't mind …"

Elvis impersonator poses next to a Cadillac just like the one the idol drove.

For much higher fees, from 1969 to 1976, Elvis Presley performed in Las Vegas at an average of two concerts per day (one in the afternoon and one at midnight).

Depending on your mood, certain shows were shorter or longer, more or less lively and contagious. Among so many performances, there were, of course, some of his unforgettable moments.

Vegas was eternally grateful to him.

Two decades earlier, during the construction fever started by the Flamingo, there were other entertainers, only slightly less famous.

As mob-backed magnates raised the city's splendor to the level of the top floors of their hotel-casinos, new groups of topless dancers arrived, from France, included.

Bright neon from the Flamingo hotel-casino, one of the oldest in Las Vegas.

In order to give credibility to the too bare stages, famous names from the showbiz North American. Frank Sinatra, Liberace and Sammy Davis Jr were among the pioneers.

These days, the shows have diversified. Some boil down to successful Stand Up Comedy experiences, transposed from other parts of the country, such as the exotic Carrot Top, Terry Fator, David Spade or the occasional Seinfeld.

Others turn out to be multi-disciplinary and technological mega-productions. And if Cirque du Soleil was monopolizing this type of shows, the recent opening of the elegant hotel-casino Wynn, implied the entry into the scene of a worthy competitor, Le Revê.

Disney-style domes of the Excalibur hotel-casino.

The access to the room itself, through the Wynn's reddish, velvety and shiny corridors and atriums, reveals something special. Inside, the only aqua theater from Las Vegas.

Once the action begins, dive, swim, dance, jump and represent a cast of 85 agile artists capable of combining strength, sensuality and drama in an amphibian and aerial fantasy world that delights the most skeptical of viewers.

Back in real Las Vegas, it's not all that elegant. Outside the Wynn, a red traffic light stops a small group of pedestrians and a lorry adapted to act as outdoor mobile.

The screen displays an alluring advertisement.

An irresistible blonde appears lying on a sofa, her head reclined and her eyes closed in a posture of pure provocation and voluptuousness.

Mobile ad on a truck box promotes a Las Vegas men's club and steak house.

The text, in gold, refers to the supposedly sophisticated origin of such preciousness. And it's straightforward: ”treasures. Gentlemen's Club & Steakhouse".

We are in Las Vegas. In Sin City, everything is forgiven.

Las Vegas, USA

World Capital of Weddings vs Sin City

The greed of the game, the lust of prostitution and the widespread ostentation are all part of Las Vegas. Like the chapels that have neither eyes nor ears and promote eccentric, quick and cheap marriages.
Las Vegas, USA

The Sin City Cradle

The famous Strip has not always focused the attention of Las Vegas. Many of its hotels and casinos replicated the neon glamor of the street that once stood out, Fremont Street.
tombstone, USA

Tombstone: the City Too Hard to Die

Silver veins discovered at the end of the XNUMXth century made Tombstone a prosperous and conflictive mining center on the frontier of the United States to Mexico. Lawrence Kasdan, Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner and other Hollywood directors and actors made famous the Earp brothers and the bloodthirsty duel of “OK Corral”. The Tombstone, which, over time, has claimed so many lives, is about to last.
Key West, USA

The Tropical Wild West of the USA

We've come to the end of the Overseas Highway and the ultimate stronghold of propagandism Florida Keys. The continental United States here they surrender to a dazzling turquoise emerald marine vastness. And to a southern reverie fueled by a kind of Caribbean spell.
Death Valley, USA

The Hottest Place Resurrection

Since 1921, Al Aziziyah, in Libya, was considered the hottest place on the planet. But the controversy surrounding the 58th measured there meant that, 99 years later, the title was returned to Death Valley.
Tokyo, Japan

Pachinko: The Video - Addiction That Depresses Japan

It started as a toy, but the Japanese appetite for profit quickly turned pachinko into a national obsession. Today, there are 30 million Japanese surrendered to these alienating gaming machines.
Sentosa, Singapore

Singapore's Fun Island

It was a stronghold where the Japanese murdered Allied prisoners and welcomed troops who pursued Indonesian saboteurs. Today, the island of Sentosa fights the monotony that gripped the country.
Philippines

When Only Cock Fights Wake Up the Philippines

Banned in much of the First World, cockfighting thrives in the Philippines where they move millions of people and pesos. Despite its eternal problems, it is the sabong that most stimulates the nation.
Bangkok, Thailand

One Thousand and One Lost Nights

In 1984, Murray Head sang the nighttime magic and bipolarity of the Thai capital in "One night in bangkok". Several years, coups d'etat, and demonstrations later, Bangkok remains sleepless.
Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Serengeti, Great Savannah Migration, Tanzania, wildebeest on river
Safari
Serengeti NP, Tanzania

The Great Migration of the Endless Savanna

In these prairies that the Masai people say syringet (run forever), millions of wildebeests and other herbivores chase the rains. For predators, their arrival and that of the monsoon are the same salvation.
Annapurna Circuit, Manang to Yak-kharka
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna 10th Circuit: Manang to Yak Kharka, Nepal

On the way to the Annapurnas Even Higher Lands

After an acclimatization break in the near-urban civilization of Manang (3519 m), we made progress again in the ascent to the zenith of Thorong La (5416 m). On that day, we reached the hamlet of Yak Kharka, at 4018 m, a good starting point for the camps at the base of the great canyon.
Visitors in Jameos del Água, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain
Architecture & Design
Lanzarote, Canary Islands

To César Manrique what is César Manrique's

By itself, Lanzarote would always be a Canaria by itself, but it is almost impossible to explore it without discovering the restless and activist genius of one of its prodigal sons. César Manrique passed away nearly thirty years ago. The prolific work he left shines on the lava of the volcanic island that saw him born.
Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
Adventure
PN Canaima, Venezuela

Kerepakupai, Salto Angel: The River that Falls from Heaven

In 1937, Jimmy Angel landed a light aircraft on a plateau lost in the Venezuelan jungle. The American adventurer did not find gold but he conquered the baptism of the longest waterfall on the face of the Earth
Christmas scene, Shillong, Meghalaya, India
Ceremonies and Festivities
Shillong, India

A Christmas Selfiestan at an India Christian Stronghold

December arrives. With a largely Christian population, the state of Meghalaya synchronizes its Nativity with that of the West and clashes with the overcrowded Hindu and Muslim subcontinent. Shillong, the capital, shines with faith, happiness, jingle bells and bright lighting. To dazzle Indian holidaymakers from other parts and creeds.
Gangtok House, Sikkim, India
Cities
Gangtok, India

An Hillside Life

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young saleswoman, nation, bread, uzbekistan
Meal
Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, The Nation That Does Not Lack Bread

Few countries employ cereals like Uzbekistan. In this republic of Central Asia, bread plays a vital and social role. The Uzbeks produce it and consume it with devotion and in abundance.
Culture
Dali, China

Chinese Style Flash Mob

The time is set and the place is known. When the music starts playing, a crowd follows the choreography harmoniously until time runs out and everyone returns to their lives.
Spectator, Melbourne Cricket Ground-Rules footbal, Melbourne, Australia
Sport
Melbourne, Australia

The Football the Australians Rule

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Traveling
Moçamedes to PN Iona, Namibe, Angola

Grand entrance to the Angola of the Dunes

Still with Moçâmedes as a starting point, we traveled in search of the sands of Namibe and Iona National Park. The cacimbo meteorology prevents the continuation between the Atlantic and the dunes to the stunning south of Baía dos Tigres. It will only be a matter of time.
Tatooine on Earth
Ethnic
Matmata Tataouine:  Tunisia

Star Wars Earth Base

For security reasons, the planet Tatooine from "The Force Awakens" was filmed in Abu Dhabi. We step back into the cosmic calendar and revisit some of the Tunisian places with the most impact in the saga.  
portfolio, Got2Globe, Travel photography, images, best photographs, travel photos, world, Earth
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Portfolio Got2globe

The Best in the World – Got2Globe Portfolio

Casa Menezes Braganca, Chandor, Goa, India
History
Chandor, Goa, India

A True Goan-Portuguese House

A mansion with Portuguese architectural influence, Casa Menezes Bragança, stands out from the houses of Chandor, in Goa. It forms a legacy of one of the most powerful families in the former province. Both from its rise in a strategic alliance with the Portuguese administration and from the later Goan nationalism.
Fajãzinha, Ilha das Flores, Confins of the Azores and Portugal
Islands
Flores Island, Azores

The Atlantic ends of the Azores and Portugal

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Geothermal, Iceland Heat, Ice Land, Geothermal, Blue Lagoon
Winter White
Iceland

The Geothermal Coziness of the Ice Island

Most visitors value Iceland's volcanic scenery for its beauty. Icelanders also draw from them heat and energy crucial to the life they lead to the Arctic gates.
Kukenam reward
Literature
Mount Roraima, Venezuela

Time Travel to the Lost World of Mount Roraima

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Devils Marbles, Alice Springs to Darwin, Stuart hwy, Top End Path
Nature
Alice Springs to Darwin, Australia

Stuart Road, on its way to Australia's Top End

Do Red Center to the tropical Top End, the Stuart Highway road travels more than 1.500km lonely through Australia. Along this route, the Northern Territory radically changes its look but remains faithful to its rugged soul.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
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A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Totem, Sitka, Alaska Travel Once Russia
Natural Parks
sitka, Alaska

Sitka: Journey through a once Russian Alaska

In 1867, Tsar Alexander II had to sell Russian Alaska to the United States. In the small town of Sitka, we find the Russian legacy but also the Tlingit natives who fought them.
Conflicted Way
UNESCO World Heritage
Jerusalem, Israel

Through the Belicious Streets of Via Dolorosa

In Jerusalem, while traveling the Via Dolorosa, the most sensitive believers realize how difficult the peace of the Lord is to achieve in the most disputed streets on the face of the earth.
View from the top of Mount Vaea and the tomb, Vailima village, Robert Louis Stevenson, Upolu, Samoa
Characters
Upolu, Samoa

Stevenson's Treasure Island

At age 30, the Scottish writer began looking for a place to save him from his cursed body. In Upolu and the Samoans, he found a welcoming refuge to which he gave his heart and soul.
Tobago, Pigeon Point, Scarborough, Pontoon
Beaches
Scarborough a Pigeon Point, Tobago

Probing the Capital Tobago

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Passage, Tanna, Vanuatu to the West, Meet the Natives
Religion
Tanna, Vanuatu

From where Vanuatu Conquered the Western World

The TV show “Meet the Native” took Tanna's tribal representatives to visit Britain and the USA Visiting their island, we realized why nothing excited them more than returning home.
On Rails
On Rails

Train Travel: The World Best on Rails

No way to travel is as repetitive and enriching as going on rails. Climb aboard these disparate carriages and trains and enjoy the best scenery in the world on Rails.
Military Religious, Wailing Wall, IDF Flag Oath, Jerusalem, Israel
Society
Jerusalem, Israel

A Festive Wailing Wall

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Ditching, Alaska Fashion Life, Talkeetna
Daily life
Talkeetna, Alaska

Talkeetna's Alaska-Style Life

Once a mere mining outpost, Talkeetna rejuvenated in 1950 to serve Mt. McKinley climbers. The town is by far the most alternative and most captivating town between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
ice tunnel, black gold route, Valdez, Alaska, USA
Wildlife
Valdez, Alaska

On the Black Gold Route

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker caused a massive environmental disaster. The vessel stopped plying the seas, but the victim city that gave it its name continues on the path of crude oil from the Arctic Ocean.
Napali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii Wrinkles
Scenic Flights
napali coast, Hawaii

Hawaii's Dazzling Wrinkles

Kauai is the greenest and rainiest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also the oldest. As we explore its Napalo Coast by land, sea and air, we are amazed to see how the passage of millennia has only favored it.