Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas

This guide to the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas starts with the hand-painted sky overhead and works down to what stood on this ground before it: the Sands, a casino Sheldon Adelson bought in 1989 and later demolished. You'll hear how the idea to rebuild Venice indoors traced back to a honeymoon he and his wife Miriam took there in 1991, and how that private trip grew into the canal and square that opened in 1999. Look for the gondoliers poling real boats past storefronts modeled on actual Venetian buildings, no two alike.