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SHOPPING IN LAS VEGAS

Depends on your viewpoint. If you are looking for quaint, clever, unique stores, this isn't the town for you (with a few notable exceptions, most of which will require you to drive some blocks off the Strip). But if you are looking for general shop-till-you-drop fun, this is your kind of town. In addition to some extensive (and recently revamped) malls, many hotels have comprehensive, and sometimes highly themed, shopping arcades. The most notable of the arcades are in Caesars Palace, Aladdin, and The Venetian.

In addition to exploring the malls, outlets and shops, you might consider driving Maryland Parkway, which runs parallel to the Strip on the east and has just about one of everything: Target, Toys "R" Us, several major department stores, Tower Records, major drugstores (in case you forgot your shampoo and don't want to spend $8 on a new bottle in your hotel's sundry shop), some alternative-culture stores (tattoo parlors and hip clothing stores), and so forth. It goes on for blocks.

Souvenirs

The Arts Factory Complex, 103 E. Charleston Blvd. (tel. 702/382-3886), has a gift shop full of pink flamingos and Vegas-specific items. There should be something here for every camp fancy.

If you prefer your souvenirs to be less deliberately ironic, head over to the Bonanza Gift and Souvenir Shop, 2460 Las Vegas Blvd. S. (tel. 702/384-0005). It's the self-proclaimed "World's Largest Gift Shop" and it certainly is big. T-shirts, Native American "handicrafts," all kinds of playing cards both new and used (casinos have to change decks frequently, so this is where used packs go), dice, things covered in rhinestones, snowglobes -- in short, something for everyone, provided "everyone" has a certain sensibility.

For reverent camp, encrusted with sequins, do take a peek at the Liberace Museum gift store, 1775 E. Tropicana Ave. (tel. 702/798-5595). Encourage them to get even more out there (don't you think they should add Liberace mouse pads and screen savers?).

If you like your souvenirs with more style (spoilsports), Cirque de Soleil's O has a gift shop in Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Blvd. S. (tel. 702/693-7444), with Cirque-specific articles, but also fanciful pottery, masks, and other curiosities.

Antiques

Las Vegas has quite a few antiques stores -- nearly two dozen -- of consistent quality and price, nearly all located within a few blocks of each other.

To get to this antiquing mecca, start in the middle of the 1600 block of East Charleston Boulevard and keep driving east. The little stores, nearly all in old houses dating from the '30s, line each side of the street. Or you can stop in at Silver Horse Antiques, 1651 E. Charleston Blvd. (tel. 702/385-2700), and pick up a map to almost all of the locations, with phone numbers and hours of operation.

Hotel Shopping Arcades

Just about every Las Vegas hotel offers some shopping opportunities. The following have the most extensive arcades. The physical spaces of these shopping arcades are always open, but individual stores keep unpredictable hours.

Note: The Forum Shops at Caesars, the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian, and the Desert Passage at Aladdin -- as much sightseeing attractions as shopping arcades -- are in the must-see category.

Aladdin
The most recent Vegas "dazzle the tourists out of their money" shopping experience (the others being over at Caesars and The Venetian), the Desert Passage uses the mystical and romantic architecture (or re-creations thereof) of the Middle East (Egypt, Morocco, Turkey) as its theme, and the results are pretty swell. Even the ceiling overhead is painted to replicate sultry days and nights, with occasional thunderstorms hitting. There is a lot to look at beyond the shops, even more than usual, since, they have frequent live entertainers -- acrobats, jugglers, and belly dancers -- to add to the visuals. And it's not just visual but odiferous: They pipe in spices and other evocative scents appropriate to those regions. The whole thing allows you to have that Middle Eastern souk-shopping experience without all the pesky touts trying to drag you into their stall for hours of haggling. You can even take a pedicab (that would be a bicycle-powered vehicle pedaled by some comely worker) for a tour of Morocco, kinda. The stores are the assortment of mid- and high-end name brands one would expect (so the gouging happens in a different way than in the souks!).

Bally's
Bally's Avenue Shoppes consist of around 20 emporia offering, you know, stuff (kitschy card-shop knickknacks and the like). In addition, there are several gift shops, art galleries, and a pool-wear shop. There are blackjack and slot tournaments right in the mall, as well as a race and sports book. You can dispatch the kids to a video arcade here while you shop (or gamble). A recent addition of a walkway to neighbouring hotel Paris features more stores and restaurants.

Bellagio
The Via Bellagio collection of stores isn't as big as some of the other megahotel shopping arcades, but here it's definitely quality over quantity. It's a veritable roll call of glossy magazine ads: Armani, Prada, Chanel, Tiffany, Hermès, Fred Leighton, Gucci, and Moschino. That's it. You need anything else? Well, yes -- money. If you can afford this stuff, good for you, you lucky dog. A nice touch is a parking lot by the far entrance to Via Bellagio, so you need not navigate the great distance from Bellagio's main parking structure; instead, you can simply pop in and pick up a little something.

Caesars Palace
Since 1978, Caesars has had an impressive arcade of shops called the Appian Way, highlighted by an immense white Carrara-marble replica of Michelangelo's David standing more than 18 feet high. All in all, a respectable grouping of hotel shops, and an expansion is in the works.

But in the hotel's tradition of constantly surpassing itself, in 1992 Caesars inaugurated the fabulous Forum Shops, an independently operated 250,000-square-foot Rodeo-Drive-meets-the-Roman-Empire affair complete with a 48-foot triumphal arch entranceway, a painted Mediterranean sky that changes as the day progresses from rosy-tinted dawn to twinkling evening stars, acres of marble, lofty Corinthian columns with gold capitals, and a welcoming goddess of fortune under a central dome. The architecture and sculpture span a period from 300 B.C. to A.D. 1700, so you've got all your ancient Italian cityscape clichés. Then there is the Festival Fountain, where some seemingly immovable "marble" animatronic statues of Bacchus (slightly in his cups), a lyre-playing Apollo, Plutus, and Venus come to life for a 7-minute revel with dancing waters and high-tech laser-light effects. The shows take place every hour on the hour. The whole thing is pretty incredible, but also very Vegas -- particularly the Bacchus show, which is truly frightening and bizarre. Even if you don't like shopping, it's worth the stroll just to giggle.

There are more than 100 prestigious emporia here, including Louis Vuitton, Bernini, Christian Dior, A/X Armani Exchange, bebe, Gucci, Ann Taylor, and Gianni Versace, along with many other clothing, shoe, and jewelry stores.

In 1998 the Forum Shops added an extension. The centrepiece is a giant Roman Hall, featuring a 50,000-gallon circular aquarium and another fountain that also comes to life with a show involving fire (don't stand too close -- it gets really hot), dancing waters, and animatronic figures, as the mythical continent of Atlantis rises and falls every hour. The production values are much higher than those of the Bacchus extravaganza, but this "performance" takes itself more seriously, so the giggle factor remains. In this shopping area, you'll find a number of significant stores, including a DKNY, Emporio Armani, Niketown, Fendi, Polo for Ralph Lauren, Guess, and Virgin Megastore. Do go see the latter, as it is fronted by a gigantic Trojan horse, in which you can clamber around, while its head moves and smoke comes out its nostrils. Also in the shops are Wolfgang Puck's Chinois and a Cheesecake Factory. A 2004 expansion upped an already high ante. The three-story addition tacked on a new Strip entryway complete with a deliriously audacious circular escalator and another 175,000 square feet of retail space. The multistoried extension tries to permanently move past "kitsch" and into "classy rich personal's shopping experience" -- though any sort of movement, literal or metaphoric, is tricky, what with all the giant marbled pillars, statues and fountains, plus an atrium that actually admits sunlight. New tenants include Harry Winston jewelers, Brooks Brothers, Tommy Bahama, Juicy Couture, Taryn Rose, several new restaurants, a branch of famed barbershop to the Royal Family Truefitt and Hill, a Playboy store, Kiehl's cosmetics, MAC, Agent Provacateur lingerie, and Vosges Haut-Chocolat, the latter few of which get us more excited than the usual Vegas shopping experience, as those are stores with more limited availability.

The majority of Caesars Palace's shops are open Sunday to Thursday from 10am to 11pm, Friday and Saturday from 10am to midnight.

Circus Circus
There are about 15 shops between the casino and the Adventuredome, offering a wide selection of gifts and sundries, logo items, toys and games, jewelry, liquor, resort apparel for the entire family, T-shirts, homemade fudge/candy/soft ice cream, and, fittingly, clown dolls and puppets. Adjacent to the Adventuredome, there's a shopping arcade (with the usual souvenir stores and such) themed as a European village, with cobblestone walkways, fake woods, and so forth, decorated with replicas of vintage circus posters.

Esplanade at Wynn Las Vegas
Along the same rarified lines of the Bellagio shopping area, in that it's a Euro-style-esque shopping street lined with pricey places with famous names -- Chanel, Cartier, Dior, Judith Liber, Jean Paul Gaultier, Manolo Blahnik, Oscar de la Renta, La Flirt (a sort of mini-Sephora), Chocolat (excellent pastries and gourmet chocolates), and Jo Malone.

Excalibur
For the most part, the shops of "the Realm" reflect the hotel's medieval theme. Dragon's Lair, for example, features items ranging from pewter swords and shields to full suits of armor, and Merlin's Mystic Shop carries crystals, luck charms, and gargoyles. Other shops carry more conventional wares -- gifts, candy, jewelry, women's clothing, and Excalibur logo items. And most important, they have a branch of that medieval staple -- Krispy Kreme Doughnuts!

The Flamingo Las Vegas
The Crystal Court shopping promenade here accommodates men's and women's clothing/accessories stores, gift shops, and a variety of other emporia selling jewelry, beachwear, Southwestern crafts, fresh-baked goods, logo items, children's gifts, toys, and games.

Harrah's
Harrah's has a small outdoor shopping promenade called Carnaval Court. Among the store highlights is a Ghirardelli chocolate store, a branch of the famous San Francisco-based chocolate company. This store is remarkably like a smaller version of the one in San Francisco (alas, without the vats of liquid chocolate being mixed up), and in addition to candy, you can get a variety of delicious sundaes and other ice-cream treats. Other stores include the Carnaval Market and Wine and Spirits shops, perfect for creating your own outdoor picnic feast.

Luxor
The Giza Galleria is a 20,000-square-foot shopping arcade with eight full shops. Most of the stores emphasize clothing. Adjacent is the Cairo Bazaar, a trinket shop.

MGM Grand
The hotel's Star Lane Shops include more than a dozen upscale emporia lining the corridors en route from the monorail entrance. And it's here that you can still find the semibanished figures from the hotel's original Wizard of Oz diorama. Studio Walk is another shopping area adjacent to the main casino, featuring some upscale boutiques and several restaurants.

Monte Carlo
An arcade of retail shops here includes several upscale clothing, timepiece, eyewear, and gift boutiques plus a Lance Burton magic-paraphernalia shop.

Rio
The 60,000-square-foot Masquerade Village is a nicely executed shopping arcade at Rio. It's done as a European village, and is two stories tall, featuring a wide variety of shops including the nation's largest Nicole Miller, Speedo, and the Nawlins store, which includes "authentic" voodoo items, Mardi Gras masks, and so forth.

The Riviera
The Riviera has a fairly extensive shopping arcade comprising art galleries, jewelers, shops specialising in women's shoes and handbags, clothing for the entire family, furs, gifts, logo items, toys, phones and electronic gadgets, and chocolates.

Stratosphere
The internationally themed (though in a high-school production kind of way, compared to what's over at Aladdin and The Venetian) second-floor Tower Shops promenade, housing more than 40 stores, is entered via an escalator from the casino. Some shops are in "Paris," along the Rue Lafayette and Avenue de l'Opéra. Others occupy Hong Kong and New York City streetscapes.

TI at the Mirage
TI's shopping promenade, nowhere near as interesting since they took all the pirate-themed bits out. Emporia here include the TI Store (your basic hotel gift/sundry shop, also offering much pirate-themed merchandise) plus the new Sirens of TI themed lingerie shop. Cirque du Soleil and Mystère logo wares are also sold in a shop near the ticket office in the hotel.

The Venetian
The Grand Canal Shoppes are a direct challenge to Caesars Palace's shopping eminence. As in the Forum Shops, you stroll through a re-created Italian village -- in this case, more or less Renaissance-era Venice, complete with a painted, cloud-studded blue sky overhead, and a canal right down the centre on which gondoliers float and sing. Pay them ($12) and you can take a lazy float down and back, serenaded by your boatman (actors hired especially for this purpose and with accents perfect enough to fool Roberto Benigni). As you pass by, under and over bridges, flower girls will serenade you and courtesans will flirt with you, and you may have an encounter with a famous Venetian or two, as Marco Polo discusses his travels and Casanova exerts his famous charm. The stroll (or float) ends at a miniature (though not by all that much) version of St. Mark's Square, the central landmark of Venice. Here, you'll find opera singers, strolling musicians, glass blowers, and other bustling marketplace activity. It's all most ambitious and beats the heck out of animatronic statues.

The Shoppes are accessible directly from outside (so you don't have to navigate miles of casino and other clutter), via a grand staircase whose ceiling features more of those impressive hand-painted art re-creations. It's quite smashing. The Venetian's "Phase Two" hotel addition will eventually adjoin the Shoppes at the far end of St. Mark's Square.

The usual high- and medium-end brand names: Jimmy Choo, Mikimoto, Movado, Davidoff, Kenneth Cole, Ann Taylor, BCBG, bebe, Banana Republic, Rockport, and more, plus Venetian glass and paper shops. Madame Tussaud's waxworks is also located here, and so is the Canyon Ranch Spa Club.


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