Creepy glass bridges and observation decks in China. The most extreme viewing platforms in the world Transparent platform in China
In May 2016, the world's largest glass observation deck was opened 70 km from Beijing. The total area of the Pingu platform is 415 m2, and it is located at an altitude of 400 m. At the same time, all parts, including the floor and side rails, are made of glass. However, you should not be afraid of such an engineering solution. The platform is built of high-strength glass with the addition of titanium alloy. The developers are fully confident in the absolute safety of this attraction.
Kinds
The glass platform is located on a 400-meter mountain peak and recedes 33 meters from the edge of the cliff. Directly under the feet of tourists, a breathtaking view of the famous Shilin Stone Forest and Jidong Gorge opens up. The place is truly picturesque. majestic mountains, rapid river, waterfalls. Many steep limestone cliffs resemble a real stone forest. Shilin is even called the wonder of the world. It is hard to believe that this is done by nature.
Thanks to its glass construction and indescribable views, Pingu has even been compared to the Skywalk over the Grand Canyon in the United States. The Sky Path is located at an altitude of 1.2 km, but is only 20 m advanced from the edge and has a smaller area.
Impressions
The observation deck "Pingu" has the shape of a vicious circle and resembles a UFO. Everyone can walk along the platform and take a closer look at the local beauties. However, for tourists, the glass floor becomes a test of courage and, in a sense, a medicine:
- First, guests experience an adrenaline rush. It's not easy to see the abyss under your feet. The brain refuses to believe that it is possible to hold on and not break down. The sensations are compared to skydiving.
- Then comes absolute relaxation. It begins to seem to a person that he is floating in the air or is in weightlessness. The effect relieves stress and nervous tension, which is especially useful for residents of megacities. Even yogis come to the site in search of nirvana. And some visitors simply lie down on the transparent floor for maximum relaxation.
The glass observation deck is never empty. Crowds of tourists walk along it in search of beautiful views, enlightenment or a good angle for a photo. After all, what could be more original than a shot over the abyss.
Hello. The observation decks of the world always attract many tourists who want to get some unusual and unforgettable sensations while on their journey. Do you know where the highest observation decks are located, where travelers strive to get to get their share of adrenaline?
In the French Alps, at an altitude of 3842 meters, there is a glass cube that hangs over an abyss. Photos from such a height they will be better than from a copter, and you will definitely never forget your feelings. All visitors to this observation deck are given white slippers, but this is without any ulterior motive, just so as not to scratch the transparent floor.
Price
By cable car in both directions 57 euros per person, and after the cable car, you need to go along the bridge between the rocks and then take the elevator to the cube itself.
The longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world
Where do you think it is? That's right, pride in our country is simply bursting, it is located in Russia, in Krasnaya Polyana. To visit it, you need to visit mountain park SkyPark and there you will find this unique structure. The length of the suspension bridge is 439 m, and it is located at a height of 207 meters from the ground.
Only from this point you can see and admire the beauty of the Akhtyn Gorge and the surrounding mountains. But, you should not be afraid of such a height, being on the bridge, as its creator assures, the bridge is able to withstand hurricane winds and an earthquake of up to 9 points.
In the same amusement park, for fans of extreme sports, there is a rope park "Mowgli", where the highest swing in the world is waiting for you at a height of 107 meters. And in the near future, you will be able to dine in a restaurant located on the edge of a cliff.
How much does the ticket cost?
Today, to visit the bridge, the prices are as follows: for an adult, a ticket costs 1250 rubles, for children under five years old and adults over 75 years old, admission is free, and for children from 5 to 12 years old, a ticket will cost 600 rubles.
Viaduct in the city of Millau in southern France
This is the highest cable-stayed road bridge in the world. So, when traveling in France, do not forget to ride on this attraction. The bridge is 2.5 km long and is part of the road from Paris to Beziers. Almost 400 million euros were spent on its construction, so the passage through it is paid, in about 80 years the bridge should pay for itself.
What's the fare
To drive across the bridge in a passenger car, you need to pay six euros, and lovers of two-wheeled Vehicle(scooter, motorcycle) almost 4 euros.
Petronas Towers glass bridge
It is located in Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, where the Petronas towers are located (their height is 452 m), and the glass bridge is located between these skyscrapers at a height of 170 meters. It’s not easy to get here (only 300 people a day), first you need to stand in a queue for many hours, and if luck smiles at you, then for $ 24 you can safely walk along this glass structure, as well as climb another observation deck on the 86th floor.
America's Willis Tower in Chicago
The tallest skyscraper in the United States, its height is 443 meters, and the observation deck consists of four glass balconies that extend from the building at the level of 103 floors, which can accommodate no more than five people.
In good cloudless weather (visibility up to 80 km), in addition to views of Chicago and its environs, you can still see the territory of four states, such as Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.
How much is?
As always when visiting such unique places, you need to stand in a long queue and take a ticket, paying only $ 16. But the wait is worth the experience.
Skyscraper Lotte World Tower in South Korea
This building is located in Seoul and it houses (from 117 to 122 floors) the highest stationary, glazed observation deck in the world, SeoulSky. From it, in clear weather, you can see the surrounding neighborhood for several tens of kilometers.
In addition, in the building itself are located:
- The largest aquarium in the world.
- The highest swimming pool in the world.
- Cinema with the largest screen in the world.
How much does the ticket cost?
For a ticket for an adult you will have to pay $ 27, for a child $ 24. There is also a ticket that allows you to skip the line, it costs $50.
The tallest single-bearing bridge in the world
It is located in Malaysia on the island of Pulau Langkawi, above the gorge at an altitude of 700m. This bridge rests on just one metal support with the help of eight cables. It has 2 viewing platforms from which you can take amazing pictures, the main thing camera do not forget.
Visit price
A ticket costs about $ 13, and you need to get here by cable car (2.2 km), then by a glass elevator, in general, an excellent excursion. By the way, the price includes a visit to:
- 6D - cinema.
- 3D museum.
- Planetarium.
Sky Trail in Arizona, USA
This lookout is located in national park America's "Grand Canyon" at an altitude of 1219 meters and still hangs over a cliff by 20 meters.
How much is
A ticket for one person will cost $30.
The scariest attraction in the world
You can “tickle” your nerves in China in the Hunan province, where national park Zhangjiajie. There is the famous "Path of Fear" at an altitude of 1400 meters. To get to the observation deck, you must first overcome this "path" (or yourself) in shoe covers that will be given to you. If you still decide to walk over the abyss, you can visit the restaurant and the “Heavenly Gates” temple on the top of the mountain.
Price
For visiting the "Path of Fear" and the temple, you will have to pay $ 37 per person, and you will be helped to get to the trail cable car, 7.5 kilometers long.
Viewpoint in the Bavarian Alps in Germany
It is located on the Alpspitz mountain peak at an altitude of 2628 meters and consists of two crossed platforms. One of them is advanced 13 meters above the abyss, and the second one is 11 meters.
Ticket price
For the funicular, with which you will get to the observation deck, you will need to pay 27 euros for an adult and 15 euros for a child. And if suddenly your dog also wants to enjoy the views Alpine mountains, then a ticket for your pet will cost 4 euros.
Good to know
And on earth, it is no less interesting to visit the longest tourist one, which is located in China, or spend the night on a floating one, which is located in the Japanese park "Huis Ten Bosch".
I wish you to visit as many interesting places as possible.
Glass walls and roofs have not surprised anyone for many years. But there are also many structures in the world in which transparent is an floor. Most often these are buildings that are related to tourism. And today we will talk about 10 most beautiful and unusual similar cases from all over the world.
Glass balcony in a Chicago skyscraper
On the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower skyscraper in Chicago is one of the most unusual observation decks in the world. Its most interesting element is the all-glass balcony bulging outward. Even the floor in this architectural element is made of a strong transparent material, which gives it a special extreme.
For five years, this glass floor was considered absolutely safe for visitors. But recently there was an emergency - the strongest glass in it burst. There were, of course, no casualties. But the company that operates this observation deck at Sears Tower has taken steps to ensure that this never happens again by installing even stronger and thicker glass.
And if the Sears Tower skyscraper was put into operation in Chicago in 2009, then in Moscow there has been an observation deck with a glass floor for several decades. It is located at an altitude of 337 meters in the Ostankino television tower.
But it's not a balcony. The glass floor on the observation deck in Ostankino is built in separate blocks into a regular floor. Each of these elements is designed to withstand a weight of up to 10 tons.
Viewpoint over the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River
The Grand Canyon is one of the most popular and most visited tourist attractions in the United States of America. And in 2007, a very unusual object was opened on one of its slopes - the observation deck of the Grand Canyon Skywalk.
It is unusual in that this horseshoe-shaped structure, hovering over grand canyon the Colorado River, has a glass floor. And people walking along it, in fact, are walking over a 350-meter abyss of one of the most beautiful places on the ground.
Statistics show that about 10 percent of visitors to the Grand Canyon Skywalk, having seen this glass floor with their own eyes, refuse to walk on it, even though they have already paid money to enter the facility.
Even more terrifying for some visitors is walking along the observation path in the Tianmen mountains in Hunan province in China. After all, about seventy meters of the path pass through the structure with a glass floor. And this is at an altitude of 1.2 kilometers!
However, a few years ago, the path in this place was even more terrible and dangerous. After all, modern tourist path located on the site of the old path of the monks who lived in these mountains. And they did not have any glass floor and safe railings - they walked along separate ledges, clinging to hooks driven into the rock and ropes stretched between them.
The futuristic-looking Apple store in New York was the first building in a huge network that subsequently entangled the whole world. It spawned many imitations all over the planet. And not only the walls and ceiling, but also the floor are made of glass in this building. True, the latter is slightly clouded, so that people on the lower floors could not “admire” from below the intimate parts of the body of store visitors walking a level higher.
The glass floor inside the building is possible not only in tall skyscrapers or in high-rise stores. It is quite appropriate to do it in. Especially if it is located somewhere in the Maldives and stands on stilts in the middle of the warm azure ocean.
One of the buildings of the LUX * Maldives hotel can boast of such an interior. In the living room of this bungalow, the coffee table sits on glass floor, and armchairs and sofas are arranged around it.
There are similar design elements in other hotels in the Maldives. For example, in the Water Villa on Nunu Atoll.
The Sky Tower radio tower, like the Ostankino TV tower, boasts an observation deck with glass floor elements, located at an altitude of more than 300 meters above the earth's surface. But still, we are more interested in another similar structural element of the Sky Tower.
When climbing to the above-mentioned observation deck in the Sky Tower, a tourist rides in a high-speed elevator, in which part of the floor is also made of glass. True, he does not have to admire the panoramas of the city of Auckland, but the elevator shaft of the tower.
In some cabins of the Ngong Ping 360 cable car in Hong Kong, even those people who, in principle, are calm about heights, are afraid to sit down. But even they cannot ride in a trailer flying across the sky, in which strong, bulletproof glass is installed instead of the usual floor.
Such cabins of the Ngong Ping 360 cable car are called Crystal Cabin, and travel in them costs more than in ordinary trailers with a metal floor.
In another Chinese metropolis, Shanghai, the glass floor is not a cable car cabin, but a swimming pool in Hotel Holiday Inn. Moreover, this part of it is a balcony located on the twenty-fourth floor of the building.
This is one of two cases in this review where the best views on the glass floor do not open from above, but from below. A person swimming in such a pool will look like an airplane flying through the sky to others.
The Sundial Bridge across the Sacramento River in the California city of Reading is world famous for two facts. Firstly, it was designed by one of the greatest architects of our time - Santiago Calatrava.
Secondly, the surface of this pedestrian bridge is completely covered with transparent glass, which allows you to achieve incredible visual effects both in the daytime and in the evening.
In the south of China, another eerie glass bridge has opened over a cliff, along which only the most daring and courageous tourists pass along the cliff to the mountainside indented with caves.
The Wriggling Dragon Bridge, which leads to Mount Tianmen, opened to the public on August 1. The length of the glass path is 100 meters, the width is just over one and a half meters. Before the views of tourists opens a truly dizzying view of the valley on the other side of the mountain range. The bridge hangs at a height of 1500 meters above the ground. This is the third such bridge on the same mountain. More recently, it was an ordinary wooden path.
This mountainous area is very popular among tourists due to its incredible natural scenery, as well as a relatively new attraction - glass bridges.
The pictures show how the first visitors of the opened bridge carefully walk along the mountain, holding on to the wall, some try not to look down through the transparent floor and over the railing.
The first glass bridge in the national mountains forest park Zhangjiajie opened in November 2011 and since then has consistently attracted tourists who want to experience what it's like to walk on the very edge of the abyss. The glass floor was then only 2.5 inches (6 cm) thick, and visitors were visibly nervous when they stepped on it.
The second glass bridge across the canyon in the national park opened in May this year. Its construction was reported to have cost approximately $3.5 million.
For those who want sensations sharper, here you can jump into the abyss with a bungee.
Now glass bridges is a popular trend in China. Usually local authorities perceive them as an opportunity to increase the influx of tourists. These ambitious projects are usually bridges, cliff paths or lookouts.
Below are the five most popular glass bottom designs in China.
An observation deck with a glass floor is located on the territory of the famous stone forest Shilin is 70 kilometers from Beijing. Its height is 400 meters above the ground, and its area is 415 square meters. It opened in May 2016.
A glass bridge 300 meters above the Zhangjiajie Canyon in Hunan province was due to open in July 2016. Its length is 430 meters, height is about 300 meters.
"Hero's Bridge" runs 180 meters above the ground and is located in the Shinyuzhai National Park in Hunan Province. It opened last fall.
The Yongtai Mountain Trail is 260 meters long and passes over 1,000 meters above the ground. It also opened in September 2015.
Yunduan glass observation deck is located at an altitude of more than 700 meters above the ground. It opened in the summer of 2015.
Here is a short video about how tourists manage to walk on such bridges. Spoiler alert: they are a little anxious.
On one of the creepiest lookouts in China.
Modern people, accustomed to a comfortable and measured life, apparently lack adrenaline. Even watching horror movies and going on roller coasters don't help. How else to understand the fact that more and more tourists are ready to fly to distant lands to visit the most terrible viewing platforms in the world? But the mere sight of these structures, "hovering" over the abyss, in theory, should discourage any desire to visit them.
Skywalk 
Arcuate Corridor in the USA
Observation deck Grand Canyon Skywalk (Skywalk) is located in Arizona (USA). It is an arched corridor, which, like a balcony, hangs over the abyss. The floor and walls of this site are transparent, and if you know that you are at an altitude of 1 km 219 meters, it becomes especially creepy. But if you are not afraid of heights, you can enjoy the stunning view of the Grand Canyon, which, by the way, is listed world heritage UNESCO, and flowing somewhere far below the Colorado River. 
The skywalk is not for the faint of heart.
The Skywalk site was opened 11 years ago, and over the years its popularity has only grown. Particularly anxious visitors are reassured by the fact that the thickness of the glass floor is 10 cm, and this unique design can withstand eight times more than that loads that it usually experiences are almost 5 tons per square meter.
Bridge in Engelberg 
bridge over mountain peaks.
Pedestrian bridge on the ski resort Engelberg (Switzerland) is considered the highest in the world. At the beginning of the last century, a cable car was opened here, and it was possible to move only on funiculars. Now you can walk over a snow-covered mountain abyss on foot - along a narrow (less than a meter wide) bridge, which, by the way, also sways. 
Scary, but beautiful.
The whole journey takes 150 meters, and if you don’t think that you are at an altitude of 500 meters, you can try to pull yourself together and take pictures along the way gorgeous views Alps.
Observation deck in Alspitze 
Two arcs suspended in the sky.
The Alpspitze observation deck (Germany), opened 8 years ago, consists of two crossed arched balconies-bridges protruding 13 meters over a two-kilometer precipice. From here open beautiful views you can look at mountains and remote villages, and you can look at thick clouds not from the bottom up, but from the top down. 
For the sake of such beauty it is worth overcoming fear
Many visitors notice that when they step on the slatted floor, the structure wobbles slightly and becomes very creepy. Also, a piercing wind often blows here, and at such moments it seems that you are just going to be blown away.
Path of Fear and Bridge of Fear 
This observation deck is recognized as the most terrible in the world.
"Glass heavenly path”, like a long balcony, attached to Tianmen Mountain in the Chinese province of Hunan, is just one of several similar viewing platforms in China, but it is usually the one that causes travelers the most horror. And although its length is only 60 meters, the 1.5-kilometer abyss under the glass floor involuntarily makes especially impressionable tourists “walk along the wall” in the truest sense of the word. And from the fact that you are walking along a steep wall, it seems that you are a real rock climber, and this makes the path even more exciting. 
Over the abyss you involuntarily cling to the wall.
Not far from this observation deck there is another "trail of fear", which is a very long and transparent suspension bridge. It is located at an altitude of 180 meters, but is considered the most terrible and longest (300 meters) of all such bridges in the world. 
The longest bridge of fear in the world.
This path is also creepy, although incredibly beautiful, but the structure itself is much wider and more impressive than the “path” on the rock. However, earlier this bridge was wooden and even then there were daredevils to walk on it.
Sky Bridge Langkawi 
From this creepy bridge you can see all the beauties of Malaysia.
In Malaysia, there is also a terrible observation deck - this is an arched bridge built 10 km from Langkawi Airport. The structure connects two mountains, and its only support is holding it - a metal pylon in the center. To get to the bridge, you must first ride one of the funiculars that start from the local village, and then climb to the southern end of the bridge on an inclined elevator or walk along the path. 
Even in such paradise planets can tickle your nerves.
To make walking along this long corridor more scary and at the same time more interesting, transparent “windows” are found under your feet every now and then. And at both ends of the bridge there are triangular viewing platforms from which the beauty of Malaysia opens up in full view. 
