Las Vegas City Guide: Bellagio & Paris Las Vegas Hotel Casino - Travel & Discover

On the short list of the city's most luxurious mega resorts, the European-styled Bellagio hovers at the top. With nearly 4,000 rooms, the 36-story hotel casino opened as the world's most expensive hotel in 1998. Construction of the Bellagio started in 1995, and today it is one of Las Vegas's premier resort hotels. The resort's design was inspired by the idyllic village of Bellagio, which overlooks Italy's magnificent Lake Como. The resort buildings around the main hotel were designed to replicate a village, which lies on the edge of the lake. The Bellagio is famous worldwide for its dancing fountains. There is no other water show anywhere else in the world of a similar magnitude, or with the same power to awe and amaze those who watch it. Everything is precisely choreographed so that each jet of water moves in perfect synchrony with the others, and in time to the music. Nonetheless, the moment the water molecules leave those jets and spring into the sky, they're completely subject to the forces of nature and the whims of the sunlight. The fountains at Bellagio have become a prime destination for proposals and weddings. A staff of 37 works behind the scenes 7 days a week, 365 days a year, to maintain the show, which begins every 30 minutes during the day, and every 15 minutes until midnight. The dancing fountain, with its 1,200 nozzles, illuminated by 4,500 colored lights, is choreographed to shoot water up to 80 meters into the air. The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately 6-kilometer stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South. Many of the largest hotels, casinos, and resort properties in the world are located on this internationally famous strip of land. Nineteen of the world's 25 largest hotels, by room count, are on the strip, with a total over 67,000 rooms. Modeled after a city renowned for the beauty of its architecture, Paris Las Vegas has become a piece de resistance on the Strip. Adorned with numerous fountains and statuary, as well as replicas of Parisian landmarks, the resort conveys the grace and elegance of its namesake. This homage to the City of Lights reproduces all the charm of the French capital, and draws obvious comparisons to the Strip's other European-themed resorts. Passion ignites when the most romantic city in the world is transported to the center of Sin City's Strip. Paris Las Vegas is decorated in classic Parisian style, with chandeliers and sophistication in abundance. The Eiffel Tower is recognized as a symbol of Paris throughout the world, and now its replica, an exact reproduction at one-half scale, is a signature feature of the Las Vegas skyline. Other Parisian landmarks that have been replicated at Paris Las Vegas, and can be found throughout the hotel and casino, are the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the Paris Opera House, and the Hotel de Ville. Las Vegas is always turning over a new leaf, so it's difficult to get a glimpse of its storied past. Fortunately, as the city ushers out the old, it welcomes in the new, bringing with it remnants from some of the most famous cities in the world. In doing so, Las Vegas is creating an architectural history all its own, that contains a mix of historic, world-renowned structures, with a few sites that could only be found in Las Vegas.