June 1 2023

Camelot's kooky crusader

Place

Las Vegas’s Mob Museum revels in the city’s gritty past

A generation or two is usually enough time for a family whose fortune may have been built upon a crime to bury its heritage. Not Las Vegas. It’s proud of its inglorious past. Housed in a four-story former federal courthouse and US post office in downtown Las Vegas, the Mob Museum revels in Sin City’s storied, unconventional and very criminal past. The building’s basement, for example, has been converted into an immersive exhibit redolent of the Prohibition era, complete with a fully operational speakeasy featuring a menu of 1920s-style cocktails. Gin-based Bee’s Knees and other drinks are served, and a traditional whiskey Old-Fashioned will be delivered hidden in a book. You’ll be invited to tour an onsite distillery where 100-proof corn moonshine is made.

Adrian Brune

Welcome to Ouarzawood, Moroccan desert outpost and set of many major movies

It’s been a nearly seven-hour drive up and down the Atlas Mountains from Marrakech before a roundabout appears at the entrance to Ouarzazate, the Amazigh (Berber) outpost where we might be able to stave off hunger, thirst and fatigue. But first, follow that roundabout — the one featuring a gigantic director’s clipboard. Then turn left and enter the parking lot of the Atlas Studios, known to the outside world as Ouarzawood, the must-see largest studio in the Sahel, just 230 miles from Merzouga: the gateway to the Sahara. Park before a half-dozen faux Egyptian Ka statues — think gigantic copies of King Tut’s tomb — then a gate opens and just beyond lie the sets to a dozen or more popular movies.