7 Best Sights in USA

Few New York views are more romantic than the one from the top of the magnificent stone staircase that leads down to the ornate three-tiered Bethesda Fountain. The fountain, dedicated in 1873, was built to celebrate the opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which brought clean drinking water to New York City. The name Bethesda was taken from the biblical pool in Jerusalem that was supposedly given healing powers by an angel, which explains the statue The Angel of the Waters rising from the center. The four figures around the fountain's base symbolize Temperance, Purity, Health, and Peace. Beyond the terrace stretches The Lake, filled with swans, gondolas, and amateur rowboat captains. At its eastern end is the new and improved Boathouse, home of a deck bar, an outdoor café for on-the-go snacks, and a pricier restaurant for more leisurely meals.

At least once during your visit you should stop in front of Bellagio to view its spectacular water ballet from start to finish. The dazzling fountains stream from more than 1,000 nozzles, accompanied by 4,500 lights, in 27 million gallons of water. Fountain jets shoot up to 460 feet in the air, tracing undulations you wouldn't have thought possible, in near-perfect time with music ranging from Bocelli and the Beatles to \"Billie Jean\" and tunes from Tiësto. Some of the best views are from the Eiffel Tower's observation deck, directly across the street (unless you've got a north-facing balcony room at The Cosmopolitan). Paris and Planet Hollywood have restaurants with patios on the Strip that also offer good views.

A favorite of barefoot children, this fountain shoots cool jets of water upward of 50 feet. Built in 1972 between the Fleet Center and Natural History Museum, the fountain offers plenty of room to sit and watch the crowds go by.

A widely lauded example of public landscape architecture, this series of 18-foot-high stone waterfalls gushes across from the front entrance of the Keller Auditorium—a cool spot to dip your toes on a summer day. Each minute, 13,000 gallons of water fall and churn through the fountain's cascading platforms.

Saucy Gold Rush–era actress, singer, and dancer Lotta Crabtree so excited the city's miners that they were known to shower her with gold nuggets and silver dollars after her performances. This peculiar, rather clunky gold-colored fountain adorned with regal lions was her way of saying thanks to her fans. Given to the city in 1875, the fountain became a meeting place for survivors after the 1906 earthquake; each April 18, the anniversary of the quake, San Franciscans gather here. An image of redheaded Lotta herself, in a very pink, rather risqué dress, appears in one of the Anton Refregier murals in Rincon Center.

There's an unusual historic landmark on the Sausalito Ferry Pier—a drinking fountain inscribed "Have a drink on Sally" in remembrance of Sally Stanford, the former San Francisco brothel madam who became Sausalito's mayor in the 1970s. Sassy Sally would have appreciated the fountain's eccentric attachment: a knee-level basin with the inscription "Have a drink on Leland," in memory of her beloved dog.

This unusually graceful fountain, built in 1888, is the centerpiece of Ankeny Square, a plaza around which the Portland Saturday Market takes place. Two nymphs uphold the brimming basin on top; citizens once quenched their thirst from the spouting lions' heads below, and horses drank from the granite troughs at the base of the fountain.