In South Lake Tahoe , the lakeside's largest community, ranks of restaurants, modest motels, and pine-bound cottages stand cheek by jowl with the high-rise gambling dens of Stateline, just across the border in Nevada. If you happen to lose your money at the tables and slot machines, you can always explore the beautiful hiking trails, parks and beaches that populate the surrounding area.

Not far away, the prettiest part of the lake is along the southwest shore, at Emerald Bay State Park , ten miles from South Lake Tahoe, which has a number of good shoreline campgrounds . A mile from the parking lot, Vikingsholm is an unlikely reproduction Viking castle (summer daily 10am-4pm, hourly tours; $3). In Sugar Pine Point State Park , two miles north, the huge Ehrman Mansion (daily 11am-4pm; $3) is decorated in Thirties-era furnishings; the extensive lakefront grounds were seen in The Godfather II .

The rest of the 75-mile drive is lovely enough, though certainly not the "most beautiful drive in America" as one locally produced brochure touts; a better way to see it is to take a paddlewheel boat cruise on the MS Dixie II , from Zephyr Cove (three departures daily in summer, one in winter, call for times; $23-49; tel 775/588-3508, ), reached on a free shuttle from South Lake Tahoe, or sign up for other boat tours through one of the larger casinos.

South Lake Tahoe

• South Lake Tahoe

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