North America > United States > Nevada > Las Vegas > Articles

Every so often there comes along an idea so brilliant, so revolutionary, that it changes the way we live. Think of velcro. Think of deep fried Mars Bars. And now think of Venice, Vegas.

In Italy, the mayor of real Venice recently paid for an advertising campaign, photographed by Oliviero Toscani of Benetton fame, to dissuade more tourists from visiting his overcrowded and polluted city. So why not avoid the herds, prohibitive costs and sinking architecture and get on a plane to the dazzle in the desert: Las Vegas.

Because here on The Strip you can visit Venice Vegas-style, at the Venetian hotel casino, complete with canals, gondolas and security guards dressed as Italian carabineri. As its owner, billionaire Sheldon Adelson, describes it, this is Las Venice. The best of both worlds.

Getting to Las Venice (unlike its Italian counterpart) is easy: an air-conditioned stretch limo whisked me from airport to Doge's Palace in 10 minutes. Opera wafted across the entrance piazza. "Gee, look Cindy, they got gondolas," crooned an overweight woman to her massive friend. The gondolas shivered visibly at their moorings.

The Venetian cost about as much as Venice probably did: $1.4 billion, to be precise. Adelson, so legend goes, chose the Venetian theme (following the razing of his antiquated Sands Casino on the same site in 1996) because his wife wanted to reproduce their honeymoon location in Vegas.

The massive complex took just two years to build. It is a truly remarkable fake.

Bordering the strip at the hotel entrance is a mini-Venice: Doge's Palace, St Mark's Square, Campanile, Rialto Bridge, Bridge of Sighs, and canals, all crammed into an area the size of Covent Garden.

The mimicry is surreal - two historians have advised the architects on details, with new techniques developed to age concrete to resemble 500-year-old stone. In the canals the water has been dyed green to imitate Venice's polluted waterways.

Behind mini-Venice soars a 500 foot high 36-storey tower block, containing 3,036 rooms - all suites - starting at £99 a night. With the second palazzo tower the hotel has 6,000 rooms, which is more than Bermuda.

I wandered in through the doge's palace to the casino to be greeted by the jangling of slot-machines. Yet the biggest buzz came not from the lure of lucre but from the hall ceiling: a vast reproduction of Veronese's 16th-century masterpiece "the apotheosis of Venice".

"Wow, look at the cartoons," hooted a child, who had evidently missed out on art history at Imbecile Valley High.

Reproduction art is everywhere in the Venetian, from Bambini's 17th-century "triumph of Venice" to canvases by Tiepolo. The frescoes were all painted onto canvas and stuck into place by Evergreen Studios of New York. The feel is of a Ducal palace, or at least the set of a Judi Dench costume drama.

Such attention to historic detail is becoming Sin City’s trade mark. Up the strip is the Eiffel Tower. At the Bellagio an art gallery contains real masterpieces from Van Gogh to Matisse. American journalists call such cultural posturing "the dumbing up of Vegas".

You might be dumbed up at the Venetian, but you still don't have to walk much. Escalators whisk you through the base of the 315-foot life-size Campanile, over the Rialto bridge and into the 150-store grand canal shopping mall, where a ¼-mile canal runs between the shops which include upmarket boutiques such as Jimmy Choo, Mikimoto, Donna Karan and two shops from Venice itself - mask-maker Il Prato and glass-maker Ripa de Monti.

Along the canal, you can get a ride in a gondola for $10 a splash, whilst at the heart of the mall is a mini St Mark's Square, where you can sit and sip espresso beneath a painted blue sky. It all looks more real than the real Venice, except for the lack of pigeon pooh.

In my room on the 21st floor of the 36-storey hotel tower block I could have swung a gondola without touching the golden lion lampshades, whilst the marble and gold bathroom was 130 square feet, which I'm sure is bigger than my flat.

Over my two days in Las Venice I talked to numerous admirers. Typical were jack and Mary Graham from North Carolina, who'd been to the real thing: "This is very reminiscent. Of course Venice didn't have the slot machines."

Wayne and Cheri from Texas were equally wowed: "It's so cool. We've just got to go and see the real one now." The only dissenting voice was that of Luigi Marostica - almost a real Venetian (he's from Bassano del Grappa, 20 minutes from the Lido).

Luigi explained that some locals back home were clamoring for theVvenetian to pay royalties. "We feel they've robbed part of Italy." Then he smiled mischievously. "But hopefully the Japanese will come here instead."

He's right. Perhaps the mayor of real Venice should forget about Oliviero Toscani and start promoting Las Venice as an alternative to his own beleagured tourist trap. In America, where 80% of the adult population still don’t have a passport, he wouldn’t have to do much convincing.

• More from the same writer