We took a bus to Fremont Street one evening. Fremont Street is located in downtown Las Vegas. Because of the glitter in The Strip, one can quite easily confuse The Strip as being downtown. Fremont Street is where the first casinos in Las Vegas ware opened — the place where it all began with the first gambling license issued in the 1930s.

It is here that where the original and famous Las Vegas are located: Binion’s Horseshoe, Eldorado, Golden Gate, Golden Nugget and Pioneer Club.

Fremont Street is now a pedestrian mall. Back in 1994, the street was closed to install the now famous lighted canopy on Fremont in response to the intense competition from the glitzier hotels on The Strip. This makes Fremont Street definitely more comfortable walking with wide walkways and lots of things to see and do. We simply love being here … just standing there and absorb the sound and lights and people watching. Collectively this is known now as the Fremont Street Experience.

We enjoyed the free concerts on permanent sound stages that they set up.

When the sky goes dark, that’s when the spectacular canopy lights up with the largest light display in the world. The canopy stretches 4 blocks in all and is lighted by over 10 million LED light bulbs. There are five different light shows every night. All the casino lights were switched off before the show began.

The show was mesmerizing. We only caught one show as we wanted to get back to the hotel before it gets too late. The show we caught was called the American Freedom … it was a very patriotic show.

The tough thing is taking the bus back to The Strip. I should have guessed … everyone will be going for the same limited buses immediately after the show. The bus was absolutely packed and the driver had a tough time getting people not to board. At almost every stop the bus had to stop for 5 minutes to organize everyone. We’re OK because we manage to get seats for ourselves.