Things to do in the top gambling cities
The other side of the 5 top gambling cities in the world – part 1
Vegas. Macau. Monte Carlo. We all know the names. We all know the glitz and glamour. But what else do these cities dedicated to the pursuit of Lady Luck offer?
While the Online Casino Review team are all dedicated and passionate gamblers, we do enjoy doing other things as well, which led us to wondering what else you would do in a place like Las Vegas.
Sure, hitting the tables in these icons of the casino industry would be an absolute thrill but, when you needed a break or were looking to spend some time doing something other than spinning the reels, what do these cities offer?
We took some time to explore outside the casinos of these casino cities to bring you the top things to do besides gambling in the 5 top gambling cities in the world.
London, UK
Online casino fans know the UK as one of the bigger territories for licensed online casinos and strict rules governing online gambling. Land-based casino players do not often realise that the UK, specifically London, is also one of the top destinations for gamblers looking for luxurious and opulent casinos.
Whales and high rollers flock to the British capital to try their luck at the Empire Casino in Leicester Square, The Victoria Casino in Paddington and The Hippodrome Casino in the West End.
And when they’re not gambling, they are surrounded by the sights and sounds of one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world.
To say that London has a rich and expansive history and culture is not really doing it justice. Everywhere you look and anywhere you go you are surrounded by historical landmarks and monuments to people and events that changed the course of history. Trying to put together a comprehensive list of things to do in London when you’re not gambling is impossible. The Online Casino Review team compared notes on their favourite memories of London to give you a brief to-do-list of our favourite outings.
Museums
London is bursting at the seams with museums. As can be expected of a city that was founded by the Romans and welcomes 27 million visitors a year, there are museums to practically everything spread around the city and its outskirts – many of them offering free entry.
The most popular museums are clustered around Exhibition Road in South Kensington. For a view back into the past, start with the Natural History Museum and its ancient fossils and dinosaur skeletons. There’s even a stuffed dodo bird.
The Science Museum is next door and is a place that is built for hands-on fun, especially for curious kids. The interactive displays bring scientific progress through the ages to life.
The British Museum is a favourite, especially the Egyptology department. Here you can find the famous Rosetta Stone, see artifacts from the pharaohs and take an archaeological trip through mankind’s history.
At the glorious V&A Museum you can spend days exploring the 7 miles of galleries dedicated to the creative genius of mankind. There are over 2.3 million objects going back over 5,000 years of art, architecture, design, fashion, sculpture, photography and more for lovers of creativity.
Shopping
London is a hub for some of the world’s most famous and exclusive brands. Take a walk down Oxford Street or Bond Street to see the displays from brands like Cartier, Gucci, Tiffany’s, Ralph Lauren and more.
London is also home to the world-famous Harrod’s department store and Selfridge’s with their awesome seasonal window displays.
Galleries
Art is a big deal in London and art lovers have a veritable smorgasbord of galleries to choose from small, intimate showings to the bigger and more famous galleries like the Tate Modern and the National Gallery.
The Tate Modern on the Southbank holds regular showing of up and coming artists alongside their collections from the likes of Picasso, Klee and Delaunay. Take the time to have a look at the building before you even enter the gallery – it’s a modern work of art in its own right.
The National Gallery is for the lovers of older art with pieces and sculptures from the most famous names in the art world: da Vinci, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Turner and more.
Green spaces
For a country synonymous with the concept of picnics you are well-covered when it comes to getting a little nature in the middle of the city. London has a large number of parks and public spaces where you can get out of the hustle and bustle and spend some time in more natural surroundings.
Hyde Park is the most famous of these green areas and attracts thousands of visitors, especially during the warm summer months. Take a paddle boat onto the lakes, stroll around the immaculate gardens, visit the famous Speaker’s Corner and add a little calm to your gambling holiday.
Hampstead Heath is another huge park – 790 acres – overlooking London with some spectacular views of the city.
Buckingham Palace and Westminster
The centres of British royalty and British government, Buckingham Palace and Westminster (which includes Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament) are the political centres of the UK – and, a few decades back, the world.
Parliament Square is filled with statues of important political figures from British history and even includes a South African icon in Nelson Mandela.
Take a cruise
Take a cruise down the famous River Thames, the longest river in England, and spot the famous landmarks like the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament.
This majestic waterway has been a strategically crucial part of London’s history, and the history of the United Kingdom. Getting a seat on a night cruise shows the capital city in all its lit up glory.
The games afoot
While we’re all huge fans of online games of chance, there is one person for whom games were his very lifeblood – Sherlock Holmes.
While the character is entirely fictional and based on the imagination of Arthur Conan Doyle, his lodgings in Baker Street were based in reality.
Just off the entrance to the Baker Street Tube station is the famous Sherlock Holmes museum.
The weird and wonderful
For those looking for something different, the choices are just as wild. From Madame Tussaud’s waxworks where you can take a selfie with every and any celebrity you can think of to Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross station (for the Harry Potter fans to the macabre displays at the Tower of London.
Some of the more unusual attractions we found fascinating were the tours of the Magnificent Seven (the seven largest Victorian graveyards in London), visiting an ancient Roman temple dedicated to Mithras, seeing God’s Own Junkyard (a visually insane ode to neon signage), and admiring the street art in areas like Shoreditch and Hackney (London is home to some of the best street artists in the world, think Banksy on a massive scale).
Paris, France
Like London, Paris is crammed fuller than a pan au chocolat with cultural and historical treats. You can’t swing a baguette without hitting some new and incredible homage to art and culture.
The Paris casinos are not as famous as their cousins in Mote Carlo but they embody that unique sense of joie de vivre that have made Paris the destination of choice for artists, writers, poets and dreamers for centuries. Aviation Club de France and the Cercle Haussman are regularly included in the lists of most opulent casinos in the world and the Parisian flair for living life to the limit means a rich selection of casino offerings and gambling establishments for players.
But there is a reason that Paris is known for things other than gambling and casinos: the city is just so full of culture and heritage you may find yourself forgetting to hit the casinos and choosing to soak in the atmosphere instead.
Museums
History is alive in Paris and can be seen at the any of the hundreds of museums that dot the city. There are museums that celebrate art, museums that showcase photography, museums filled with the relics of our ancient past all the way back to fossils, museums for the cultures found around the world, and so many, many more.
Look out for the Musée de Quai Bramly with its ‘living’ building (a building that is literally alive) and the Musée de Cluny with its 14th and 15th century architecture and stunning displays of manuscripts, tapestries, artwork and sculptures from Medieval times.
At the Musée des Arts et Métiers you can find France’s greatest contributions to science and technology including Foucault’s Pendulum, Bartholdi’s model of the Statue of Liberty (a gift from France to the United States), early aircraft and cars and other innovations that changed the course of History.
Art
There is just so much! Like, so so much. Paris is a city of beauty and its love of art is a reflection of that. There are small galleries everywhere and it is home to some of the biggest and most famous galleries in the world. Everything from Medieval art to Renaissance art to Modern and post-Modern art, everything before and after, is on display.
The Louvre is justifiably one of the most visited attractions in Paris and is more a museum than a gallery. If you were a famous artist, you can guarantee you have a piece on display here: Michelangelo, Rembrandt, da Vinci, Botticelli, the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo – you can spend days exploring the treasures in the world’s biggest museum to art.
Other famous art destinations include: Musée de Arts Decoratifs, Musée Jacquemart-André, Musée Rodin, Musée Marmottan Monet, Centre Georges Pompidou and the Musée d’Orsay.
The total tourist
Even for a jaded traveller, Paris has those landmarks that you absolutely need to cross off your list. Saying you played vingt-et-un at Cercle Haussman just isn’t the same as a selfie in front of the most famous landmarks in the world.
For a truly Parisian memento you need to take a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, on the Pont Neuf, at the Palace of Versailles, gazing at the view from the Panthéon, looking up at Notre Dame Cathedral and wandering the Champs-Elysées.
Shopping and dining
The Champs-Elysées is the greatest collection of famous brands and fashions in France. But for a taste of something different, give the glitzy tourist trap shop a miss and explore some of the trendier suburbs to find all sorts of amazing and beautiful objects and clothes.
And don’t forget to try out that other famous French attraction – the food!
Paris is full of cafés, patisseries, boulangeries and more that offer the finest treats and pastries money can buy. And French cuisine is rightly famous worldwide so take some time away from the casino to sample some of the best cooking in the world in the home of fine dining.
Music
Art and music go hand-in-hand and Paris is famous for its music scene. There are tons of smoky little bars where you can experience blues and jazz, hundreds of street musicians putting on a show just for you (and whoever else will toss them a coin) and plenty of concerts that happen on a regular basis.
But Paris in the 1800s was the centre for the world’s music. And you can relive that opulence and decadence at the Palais Garnier – quite possibly the world’s most famous opera house.
Leave the high hand poker game and experience some high class art and culture by taking in an opera in the venue that boasted the world’s most famous composers and musicians.
Off the beaten track
For those looking for something a little less tourist-y:
Visit Père Lachaise cemetery and see the final resting places of famous figures like Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Colette, Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison.
Explore the Paris sewers on a guided walking tour. Yes, it may sound weird, but the Paris sewers are a testament to engineering and they even have their own dedicated museum.
Get a spooky thrill in the catacombs. The Paris Catacombs were built to store the bodies of the dead as the cemeteries became too full to cope and are filled with the bones and skeletons of people long gone.
Just look for the quirky. Parisians have a strange sense of humour and you can find truly quirky and unique museums and shops all over like a museum dedicated to carnival rides and a museum dedicated to the magical arts (magicians and stage performers not dark rituals!) and even museums that showcase erotica!
To be continued…
We hope you’ve enjoyed part one of ‘The other side of the 5 top gambling cities’. Keep an eye out for part two where we explore Macau, Monte Carlo and, of course, Las Vegas.
