For as long as we live I don't think we will ever forget arriving in Las Vegas.You drive for hours seeing nothing but desert, desert and yet more desert then from nowheresuddenlythe horizon fills with the weirdest and most surreal skyline!Pyramids, the eiffel tower, the statue of liberty, the empire state building, the green tower of the MGM Grand, the elegance of the Bellagio and that's just for starters!!We negotiate the insanity that is the Las Vegas strip to arrive at our hotel about a mile from the action.We check in and with the thermometer measuring 105 degrees we spent a couple of hours relaxing in our lovely hotel room in the comfort of the air conditioning.We then get the complimentary minibus to the strip to begin taking in the madness ofsin city!Our first stop is the light show at the bellagio fountain.If you have never heard of this before it is the water show at the end of the oceans eleven film.The water moves to light and music and is the most impressive water fountain I have ever experienced and a must see in vegas.We then decide to walk around some of the famous hotels and casinos to see how the rich party.We take in caesars palace first and within minutes of entering the building we are being offered free drinks from a drinks hostess and we both decide we could get used to this!!Caesars palace is huge and it takes us over an hour to walk round the casino, hotel and shopping centre.We decide to get dinner at the buffet restaurant in the casino and with the theme being all you can eat that's exactly what we did and 40 minutes later we could hardly walk we were so stuffed!Next stop is the Venetian and as the name would suggest it is the casino and hotel complex modelled around venice.This is by far the most beautiful casino in Vegasand my favourite, it oozes class from every brick!The foyer where guest check in is like something from a film set it is simply stunning!We wander around with our jaws on the floor watching the gambling, the money, the outfits, the class and trash loving every minute of our first night!Day 2 Headed back to the strip and with the temperature in the 100's it was a game of how quickly can we walk between casinos to get to the air conditioning because the heat is just too uncomfortable to walk around in.Our first stop was to get tickets for a show in one of the casinos.On our travels we had been recommended to see one of the Cirque du Soleil shows so we chose the newest one called Ka, we headed to the MGM Grand to get our tickets and had a quick wander around.MGM is much more of a classic casino, less grand but as the casino which hosts most of the boxing matches held in Vegas it is clear to see it is one of the key players on the strip! After the MGM we went to Planet Hollywood for which I didn't have high expectations but was pleasently surprised, it is very modern inside with lots of bling and clever use of lighting this gives it a really funky modern feel and defininitely up there as one of my favourites. Unlike so many of the others it doesn't look much from the outside but with the budget being spent on the décor it definitely does not disappoint!With a mile of shops inside surrounding the casino floor there is definitely no shortage of places to spend your winnings!Next stop New York New York and this is the casino where the budget was blown on the exterior.With a minature empire state building, brooklyn bridge, statue of liberty, crysler building and a roller coaster running through the middle of it all New York New York cannot fail to impress.Unfortunately the inside of this casino is a bit of a let down a bit tired looking it just doesn't have the same Vegas wow as some of the others but you can almost forgive this as the outside cannot help but make you smile!!By this time we had enough of the heat so we got a taxi back to the hotel to chill for a couple of hours before the show!!Booked the show for 9.30 but decided to go to the MGM a bit early to get a couple of free drinks and watch some of the gambling before the show.Didn't take long for us to be tempted by the roulette table so we got $20 dollars worth of chips and with a $5 limit on the table I started to place my bets.Made a few mistakes initially with the rules but just kept smiling at the man in charge and he kindly pointed me in the right direction!With a few lucky breaks and only a few spins with no wins we had soon doubled our money and had to cash out to go to the show.Was so much fun and a bit of a buzz to walk away with $40 dollars feeling very pleased with ourselves.Ka was amazing it was based on martial arts and combined music with the magic aerobatics and dance you would expect from any cirque du soleil. Some of the stunts seemed to deny gravity and was captivating to watch. The 90 minutes seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, you cant help but wonder where the time went but that aside we would recommend the show to anyone visiting vegas, not cheap but worth the treat!Day 3 Yet more casinos to explore so we started in France! Having never been to france a lot of the exterior was wasted on us but I have no doubt as with New York New York all the famous buildings were represented in minature form! There was an Eiffel Tower which was exactly half the size of the real eiffel tower! Inside the casino it is like walking around a small french town, cobbled streets and lots of authentic (well as authentic as it gets in the desert) little french boutiques and food shops. The ceiling is painted like the sky with the legs of the eiffel tower appearing through the ceiling into the casino! We walked around for a while before moving on to the Piazzo. This is a much newer hotel and casino complex, not themed on anything but very classy none the less! By this stage we were all casinoed out so we went to a shopping mall in the middle of the strip. As with everything in Vegas it looked pretty small from the front but once inside we soon realised it was massive, about a mile deep and 3 levels in height! We had lunch there, watched a fashion show that the mall puts on twice a day and bought a gadget for my i pod before heading back to the hotel to rest our legs before pounding more casino carpets at night! We decided that tonight would be our proper gambling night and planet hollywood would be the scene of the crime! We took $100 dollars each to spend on anything we wanted and both agreed we were not leaving until we had blown the lot! Mike chose to play black jack and as is aways the case managed to win quite a few hands very quickly and soon we were up on money. He had only been playing for about half an hour so it was too soon to walk away so he played on for another 2 hours before lady luck ran out and all the money was gone! Such a buzz and so much fun as we had never done it before! Now it was my turn and i was hooked on roulette from the previous night! As with the previous night i won lots very quickly but wanted to play on for as long as i could. Red was my luckiest colour and 3 was the luckiest number on the wheel so I did really well for about 3 hours before as with Mike my luck was running out! By the time our money was all gone it was 2am and neither of us could believe we had forgot to get dinner!! Having gambled in the casino for about 5 hours we had taken full advantage of the free drinks for players and were a little bit tipsy by the time we stumbled into our taxi back to the hotel!! Had such an amazing time and even though we lost all our money we had 5 hours of entertainment which we both agreed was money well spent and we vowed to join a casino when we get back to edinburgh as it is such a buzz!Although we have one more night left in Las Vegas we are spending the day in the state of Arizona, visiting the Grand Canyon so the final day of our stay will be filed under Arizona!!