Bellagio Conservatory - A Garden That Changes Its Clothes

Photo: Tomas Del Coro, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)

A stop on Las Vegas Strip Walk, a free self-guided tour.

Step inside Bellagio and follow the signs from the lobby to the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, a 13,500-square-foot indoor garden that is free and open to everyone. Five times a year, for Chinese New Year, spring, summer, fall and winter, the whole thing is torn out and rebuilt with a new theme. Each changeover takes more than 100 workers several days, and a single display can cost around a million dollars.

Expect giant flowers, sculpted animals, oversized props and the odd bridge or waterwheel, mostly made of real plants. About 20,000 people a day wander through.

On your way in, look up at the lobby ceiling. It's covered in Fiori di Como, Dale Chihuly's sculpture of more than 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers, often called the largest glass sculpture in the world. It took about two years to make. Nobody has ever said what it cost, which in Las Vegas is really saying something.

Getting here: Walk into Bellagio from the Strip and head for the main lobby; the Conservatory opens right off it.

Did you know?: The Conservatory was first planned as an outdoor garden before the designers moved it indoors.

Photo op: Stand at the Conservatory entrance and shoot down the length of the garden to catch the whole display, then tilt your camera up at the Chihuly flowers in the lobby.

More on Wikipedia: Bellagio · Dale Chihuly

Bellagio Conservatory - A Garden That Changes Its Clothes

Stops on this tour