Las Vegas

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DO YOU KNOW THE PROBLEM with Europe? Nowhere to park and too many hills to climb. And everyone speaks different languages.

What an inconvenient place for a holiday. Instead, why not take a trip to Europe, Las Vegas? Fly to the Nevada Desert and all the delights of Europe can be at your fingertips, with none of the drawbacks.

In the heart of America’s most exciting 24-hour city, the Disneyland for grown-ups, lies a miniature Europe with plentiful parking spaces, no hills and constant sunshine, peopled by a nation with a firm grasp of the English language (OK, make that a reasonably firm grasp.)

The original Vegas hotels were themed around the desert itself – the Sahara, the Sands, the Palms, the Desert Inn and so on – but this is a boom town and they soon ran out of sandy ideas.

The Mirage is the only recent hotel to pick a desert theme – and until somebody sees fit to build the Foreign Legion, the Heatstroke or the Terrible Risk Of Dehydration, it looks like the last.

Europe in fashion

Europe is now the fashion – the Bellagio, the Venetian, the Paris and the Monte Carlo. The hotels are absolutely ginormous. Walking into a lobby is like entering a whole new city. The Venetian is a near-exact copy of Venice but seems about eight times the size.

It has 4,049 guest rooms, all vast, sweeping suites. There’s no chance of banging your knee on the wall as you get into bed in this hotel. In Las Vegas, the cost of hotel rooms changes every night – you pay whatever you agreed on the day that you made the booking.

A suite at the Venetian will be about $200 per night. For this, you get to see Venice at its finest. St Mark’s Square is painstakingly recreated in every detail. You can book gondola rides along the perfectly built canal, with the option of indoor or outdoor. That’s my kind of canal.

Some people argue that the soul of Venice is in its decay, the ageing architecture, the cracked stone. ‘Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,’ Lord Byron lovingly wrote. ‘A dying Glory smiles O’er the far times.’

But Byron never saw the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas. It is as shiny and polished as a new pin. Nothing cracks or crumbles here and nothing is dying, unless an elderly millionaire’s pacemaker gives out at the roulette table. This is a flawless Venice with no trace of decay.

If you’ve ever ordered a Veneziana at Pizza Express (capers, olives, sultanas, and 10p from each sale to the Venice In Peril Fund), it’s worth a trip here to see what the city will look like if they ever sell enough pizzas to rebuild it.

Farther along The Strip (Las Vegas’ neon-lit main boulevard) is another famous city perfectly recreated at the Paris. This hotel boasts replicas of the main French landmarks.

Its architects proved that, yes, you can improve the Eiffel Tower! How? By placing its girders inside a swimming pool, of course.

Similarly, anyone who has ever strolled along the Bois de Boulogne and thought ‘fine, but needs more excitement’ is bound to find it more interesting with blackjack tables down the middle.

The most deluxe hotel in Vegas

Perfect for whipping up an appetite to settle down at a pavement cafe for a French burger – the same as an ordinary burger but with Gruyere.

Yes, Gruyere as in Switzerland. I love America. When I say pavement cafe, of course you do not actually go outside. The genius of Las Vegas is the way they keep people indoors and at the gaming tables.

An absence of clocks and natural light stops you yearning for the world beyond. The Paris and the Venetian complete the illusion with ceilings painted as blue sky and clouds (they are much like the ceiling in The Truman Show, in which Jim Carrey starred as a man who lives his entire life in a TV studio believing it to be the real world).

Your pavement cafe experience includes a cobbled street, passing traffic and a sky – all fakes. The Monte Carlo Hotel is, sadly, a disappointment. Although huge, it is rundown and much less glitzy than the real thing.

When playing video poker machines at the bar, I was charged for a strawberry daiquiri. Since Las Vegas tradition dictates that all gamblers drink for free, this was stingy of them.

The Bellagio is the most deluxe hotel in Las Vegas. The real Bellagio on Lake Como in Italy is a beautiful spot; but Italy is full of beautiful spots. The Bellagio in Las Vegas has no rival.

Its marble halls are decorated with 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers. Its Mediterranean theme pool is divided into six courtyards. Its fountains are named Lake Bellagio. It should be Lake Como, but this is soon forgotten in the spectacle of their breathtaking water-and-light shows.

The hotel also has ten restaurants, a botanical garden, a theatre with Cirque du Soleil in residence, and an art gallery.

There are also the high-fashion shops along Via Bellagio, where the top Italian designers (Armani, Moschino, Prada, Gucci) jostle for the attention of passing gamblers with cash to spare.

Where does all this luxury and spectacle leave Britain? Surely we too are represented in Europe, Las Vegas? Why, of course: at Excalibur, the Olde-Englande themed joint on The Strip.

This castle-shaped family hotel has Sir Galahad’s Rib Shack, a nightly jousting tournament, and a free music stage where ladies sing madrigals – and you can of course shake hands with Sir Lancelot, see Merlin do battle with a dragon and eat the Queen’s Own Trifle at the Sherwood Forest Cafe.