Category: North America

Antelope Canyon, Arizona, USA

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Antelope Canyon is one of the best-known and most photographed gorges of the southwest of the United States. Located in Northern Arizona, beside Lake Powell, in the reserve of the Navajo Nation. It
consists of two separate gorges, the Upper Antelope Canyon (above) and the Lower Antelope Canyon (below). The canyon can only be visited in guided tours, in part because there could be unexpected rains that can quickly flood it. The guide takes you in a 4 x 4 following the bed of an ancient river till the entrance of the fault about 5 kilometres from the 98 road linking Page to Kayenta. The visit lasts about an hour following the throat over one kilometre. Both faults have a similar aesthetic quality. The Upper Antelope Canyon is most visited because it is larger and its access is easy; on the other side, Lower Antelope’s admission is smaller and wide and you must come in through metal stairs put in place by the Navajos so visitors are fewer. The Upper Antelope Canyon varies from 2 to 3 metres wide and 400 metres long. Lower Antelope Canyon is long, narrow and present significant differences of levels. Unfortunately, on August 12th , 1997, eleven people were killed by a flash flood in the Lower Antelope Canyon.

Tips

Sports shoes are required to make visits.
To visit the Lower Canyon, you can reach the parking which is very close and you can go on foot. Note that a physical fitness is also important for this visit.
It is not necessary to make a reservation but it is suitable to arrive early if you want to visit the two gorges. As soon as you arrive, make the reservation for the Upper Canyon and in the meantime you can visit the Lower Canyon with the same ticket .
As the position of the sun is very important for the colors and shadows of the gorges, the best time to visit them is around noon.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT is a research institute and a university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston; specializing in the fields of science and technology, regarded as one of world’s best universities in science and technology. It is also known in other fields such as economics, political science, linguistics, philosophy and management; the most important is engineering with 2,000 students; with all its online courses on the Internet since 2002. It is interesting that students participate in scientific and technological research in their first year of study. 78 Nobel Prize winners have emerged from its ranks. Besides its faculties, there are the Lincoln Laboratory, the laboratory of artificial intelligence and computer science, the Nuclear lab, the media lab, being the most important among others.

Tips

The campus is open for visits by the general public from Monday to Friday, there are guided tours at 11:00 and 15:00. You can also visit guiding you with a map that you can find in the lobby.
You can attend various events that the Institute organizes, to know more, you have to go to their website and you will find all the information with the ticket prices. There are also several ones that are free.

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

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Las Vegas is the largest city in the State of Nevada, in the United States. It is located in the middle of the Mojave desert, in Clark County. Mormons founded the town in 1855, which became an agricultural village at the beginning of the XXth century. Nowadays the city is well known by its casinos, luxury hotels and all the entourage that attracts tourists from around the world. It has more than 120,000 hotel rooms, making it the first hotel city in the world. It is also a place of choice for large congresses. Its climate is desert hot and this is one of the sunniest cities in the world. Hotel-casinos are divided into two areas: downtown, with the oldest casinos and the Fremont Street Experience light attraction and the Strip or Las Vegas Boulevard, a long boulevard extending from downtown to the South toward Los Angeles. This is where lie the largest, latest and often most eccentric casinos hotels. Their architecture, often with theme, is sometimes striking. Many hotels of the boulevard also include shows rooms used for concerts, performances of prestidigitation and other shows like the Cirque du Soleil productions. Among the most attractive wefind:

The Venetian, dedicated to the city of Venice, with 7,000 rooms, is the largest hotel in the world. It has 15 restaurants, 150 shops, a Museum of motorcycles and also the Guggenheim Museum of Las Vegas.

Paris Las Vegas, where you can see the replica of the Eiffel Tower (165 meters). It is connected to the Bally’s hotel by a shopping gallery.

Stratosphere Casino Hotel & Tower, its main attraction is the Stratosphere Tower, which rises to 365 metres; at the top lies a small course of roller coaster and the Big shot; an attraction that propels customers at the top of a tower from 49 metres to 72 km per hour. It is also the highest attraction of the world; it offers also a breathtaking view on the boulevard and the entire city.

The Mirage, whose interior is marble from floor to ceiling and where there is an aquarium of about 90,000 liters and some 1,000 palm trees 20 metres high.

Luxor, there is a pyramid with 30 floors and 2 external towers with 22 floors. It is the 4th largest hotel in the world. It also has an Imax cinema and a small Nile on which you can sail. It is connected to the Mandalay Bay to the left and Excalibur to the right by a skytrain.

Tips

The CAT Bus (Citizens Area Transit) is a popular mean of public transportation among the inhabitants of the city and tourists with various routes which cover a large part of the Valley.
The Deuce bus (two-storey), shuttled on Las Vegas Boulevard, from the Strip to downtown, one valid for a two-hour service or another for the whole day.
The Las Vegas Monorail is a public transit system ranging from the MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel in the South of the Boulevard until the Sahara Hotel in the North of the Boulevard.
If you like shopping, Las Vegas is the ‘temple of shopping’; you will find many shopping malls as Fashion Show Mall.