Travel

Most Terrifying and Breathtaking Glass Bridges in China

Travelers are constantly seeking new thrills and countries are in a constant race to satisfy this new demand. Over the last 5 years, new see-through glass bridges have been popping up around the world and especially in China. These stomach-churning bridges have dizzying heights up to 300 meters (980 feet) above ground! Nevertheless, with the list of the most popular glass bridges in China, this article uncovers the most beautiful, yet most terrifying and scariest skywalks this country has to offer. 

The glass bridges are creatively designed and offer breathtaking views. It can be a glass suspension bridge overlooking a lush forest wreathed with mist, a perfectly transparent glass bridge hanging over a steep grand canyon, or a glass-bottom bridge that surprisingly combines with a spectacular musical waterfall.

So if you’re in India, you can take a flight to check out the “Bihar Glass Bridge” whose length is about 85 feet and the width is about 6 feet. 

Here are the top scary glass bridges in China that are absolutely terrifying! 

Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge 

Location: Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, Sanguansi Tujia Ethnic Village, Zhangjiajie

With a length of 536 meters and a width of 6 meters, Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge is a large valley suspension bridge and is famous both in China and abroad for setting many world records for glass Bridges when it was built. In addition to the skywalk function, it also features a bungee, a swing, a zipline, a runway, wire walking, and other thrilling experiences. Nevertheless, it is definitely suggested to put it on your list, if you are looking for an adventurous and thrilling vacation.

Tianmenshan Skywalk in Zhangjiajie 

Location: Tianmenshan National Forest Park, Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province

The Coiling Dragon Cliff of Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie has made its fame for years, and is a must-have thrill for a Zhangjiajie adventure. The glass skywalk in China is 100 meters (328 feet) long, 1.6 meters (5 feet) wide, and around 1,430 meters (4,700 —feet) above sea level. It is comparable to the world-renowned “Sky Road”—the glass corridor of the Grand Canyon in the United States, and thus has the reputation of “Eastern Sky Road.” On that note, you can check out the “Grand Canyon Glass Bridge” by booking a flight to the USA. 

Shenzhen Guangming Glass Suspension Bridge 

Location: Dadingling Greenway, Guangming District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province

For many travelers, Shenzhen is a beautiful, comfortable, and convenient metropolis, but there are not many experiences considered to be thrilling. The good news is, the city now has an amazing glass bridge embedded in the Dadingling Greenway of Guangming District. The bridge is composed of three rings, with diameters of the rings are 50, 30, and 20 meters respectively, suspended in the air dozens above the ground in the forest. Standing on the bridge, you can enjoy an uninterrupted view of the City of Light. The most amazing thing is the technology applied on the glass suspension bridge—it is covered with solar panels that absorb the sunlight during the day and light up the whole bridge instantly when night falls.

Ruyi Glass Bridge in Shenxian Scenic Area

Location: Shenxianju Scenic Area, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province

This arched-steel-structured glass bridge, integrated with nature and mountains, just looks like a jade ruyi in the sky. When the transparent glass bottom makes people quake, the magnificent natural beauty completely soothes you mentally. The main body of Ruyi Bridge, China is shaped by flexible lines of the main and secondary arches, connected by steel cables, and forming a sky eye in the middle. The bridge deck pavement is composed of steel grille, wood board, sticky stone, and transparent glass, and the guardrails(made of stainless steel wire mesh), which not only ensure the passage of all tourists but also provide a fabulous, clear, and breathtaking sightseeing experience.

If you wish to read more travel-related blogs, then check them out at ImpetusLabs and step into the world of the expedition.

Qingyuan Yuntian Boba Glass Bridge 

Location: Gulongxia Original Ecological Tourism Area, Qingxin District, Qingyuan City

It is the first of its kind in the world, and is famed as a super cool “glass combination”. With a total length of 1,314 meters, it is taken as a glass viewing platform, glass skywalk & glass bridge with views of the waterfall and surrounding landscapes. Moreover, it takes about 45 minutes to complete the entire walk. The platform is 202 meters long and the suspended span is 72 meters. It uses three layers of super transparent glass with a total of 4.5 centimeters, making it one of the thickest plank glass bridges in the world. 

On one of the platforms of the glass walkway, special effects such as “sound, light, and electricity” are installed to create fabulous effects such as “smoke blowing” and “rosy gallery bridge”. And the glass bridge China crack effect will make you feel the glass bridge breaking, but it isn’t!! 

Cloud Skywalk Bridge

Location: Longgang Scenic Area, Yunyang County, Chongqing

Built on a cliff 1,010 meters above sea level, this glass bridge in China has a cantilever 26.68 meters long. The bridge is 718 meters above the ground, and the walkway is 3.4 meters wide and 50 meters long. In addition, it’s the world’s longest cantilever glass bridge. Interestingly, this unique landform has been favored by many top extreme sports masters in China as well as abroad. In April 2016, the world’s highest low-altitude skydiving competition was held on this bridge, and top athletes from more than 10 countries competed in this thrilling competition. 

Qingchuan Glass Bridge

Location: Lianzhou City, Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province

This iconic yet terrifying bridge is nestled in Huangchuan Three Gorges, known for its stunning landscapes. The glass bridge spans the steep cliffs of Huangchuan Three Gorges, overlooking the largest waterfall group in north Guangdong. This skywalk of China has a clear width of 8.8 m with a bridge level of 201m and is crowned as the “longest Glass-paved suspension bridge” in the Guinness World Record for its 526.14 m glass length. With the vertical circular arc stainless steel guardrail on both sides of the bridge, as well as the eye-catching Chinese red color of the bridge tower and main cable, this glass bridge blends perfectly with the modern and classic Chinese structure.

Walking through the glass bridge, one might tremble with fear, but the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. More surprisingly, it can easily bear the weight of vehicles and you can also see several cars crossing the bridge in style.

Conclusion 

These were the most terrifying and longest glass bridges in China, which you can visit and experience the true sense of thrill and feel the increased adrenaline in your body as you walk through the bridge. 

Learn 7 Crucial Tips and Be a master Traveler

 

Planning for a trip is important, but just as important as planning is being prepared when you’re actually on the trip. Mmhmm! So first let’s start with planning your trip. There are a couple of things you can do in advance of your travel to make things much smoother. 

Tip 1: Get familiar with your route options.

This is a web and mobile tip, and it’s a great one for planning a road trip. From maps.google.com, after pulling your directions, tap on options underneath the destination. Here, you can choose to avoid highways, toll roads, and ferries.

 

This is really helpful if you don’t want to rack up a huge bill on the toll roads! Now, something else cool about these web features is that you can also adjust the distance units too – so if you’re already on your trip and that country uses km, you can switch to that mode for better accuracy.

 

There are lots of sites like Ask Reader That can help you learn and ask questions with travel experts. And like I said, some of these route options can be done from your maps app on a mobile device as well. This time, you’d tap the menu icon and select your route options.

Tip 2: When it comes to planning a trip is to create shared Google Maps.

This is not sharing your location – which I’ll get to later, but rather sharing entire Maps. For this, you’ll use Google My Maps. It’s really easy – here’s how to do it. The first thing you’ll do is head to google.com/mymaps and if you’re not logged into your Google account already, you’ll be prompted to do so.

 

Now you can see I already have a couple of shared maps created here, but it’s really easy to create your own custom shared Google Map. So click on ‘create a new map’, and from here, make sure you title your map. So, if you’re planning your trip to Florence, Italy, you could make that your title.

 

Then, add a little description if you like and click save. Now, in the search bar at the top, type in the name of the city you’re going to go to and hit enter to bring that map up. Now here’s where things get fun! We still have this untitled layer here – which is the map as we see it right now, so you could name the layer the city name or points of interest, or however, you want to organize it.

 

With this layer selected, using the hand tool, we’ll move around and zoom in, and when we find a place we want to drop a pin on, we’ll switch to the ‘add marker’ option and click to drop the pin.

 

Rename your marker to keep things organized. You can do this for any place of interest by the way, a restaurant, museum, whatever. To keep things super organized, I recommend clicking the paint bucket and selecting an icon that best describes the location you’re pinning.

 

You can also change the color of the marker here too. So, once you have an entire map full of all your points of interest, it’s time to share it. This is why this is so important for planning a trip. QnA Sites is a good option for finding travel-related answers.

Also Read: Delta Airlines Telephone Number

 

You could share this custom map with those you’re traveling with, you could share it with family back home so they know where you’ll be traveling to and your rough itinerary, and you can even create maps like this and share it with friends who are traveling to your favorite city – what a great way to share the best things to do in any given city in an interactive way.

 

So, once your map has all the points of interest your heart could desire, simply click the share icon, and in this popup, you’ll have the option to email it directly to your contacts or share it via a link. It’s really that simple!

 

So now that the planning is done, it’s time to actually take the trip, and luckily there are so many great Google Maps features to help your planned travel go smoothly.

 

Tip 3: Search for needs, not addresses.

Did you know you don’t just have to search addresses in Google Maps? You can search for a need. It’s true!

 

So if you’re visiting somewhere and want to see all the grocery stores or restaurants or coffee shops, or gift shops, you can either select the icon from the left-hand side of the map, or you can just type that in the search bar, and hit the search icon and look at that, you’ve got dropped pins on all the coffee shops near you, as well as a list on the left-hand side.

 

If you click on one, the panel on the left will change to display the business info for that dropped pin. Now, these next few tips are for mobile app pleasure.

Tip 4: Save your parking location.

Yes, please. A handy Google Maps feature indeed. To save your parking spot, just tap your blue location icon on the map. Then select, set as parking location. Now look, Google Maps displays that you are parked near here.

 

Never forget your parking spot again! So what if you’re not driving and you need to hail a ride instead? 

 

Tip 5: hail a ride directly from your Google maps app.

When you input a destination, scroll the transit options underneath and select the icon that looks like a figure hailing a ride. Google will tell you the different ride-sharing services supported and how long of a wait for each one, as well as the price.

Tip 6: is to share your location with someone else.

Tap your location dot on the map and select ‘share your location.

 

You’ll have the option to share for a set amount of time, or until you manually turn it off. Your location is then stored in a viewable link you can share in multiple different ways – like w contacts, via a messenger service, or email. If you share with a friend that you’re meeting, they’ll be able to see your location and then share theirs as well, so you both can see where each other are on the map.

 

Not only will you share your location, but it’s going to show your battery percentage as well. You can also drop a pin somewhere on a map that you want to meet someone, or let someone know you’ll be at that spot later. Just tap and hold on the map and you will see a red pin.

Then at the bottom, select the Share option to share the position of the dropped pin with someone.

 

Tip 7: Download your Google Maps for offline navigation.

That’s right, no wifi or data, no problem. This is the number one most handy feature for when I’m traveling. So, from the city, you’re in, or you will be traveling to next, select the menu icon, then just tap ‘download offline map’.

 

If you want the full tutorial on downloading offline maps you can click here or watch the video linked below. Remember, this is just the first installment of a whole series of Google Travel tips I’ll be putting together for you.

 

If you have any specific google travel tip questions, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below. So what are your favorite Google Maps tips for travel? Let me know in the comments below. As always, thanks so much for watching, if you liked this video, I want to know so give it a like, a share, or leave that comment below.

 

You can click right about here to subscribe to my channel and right here and here for more Google Maps videos.

Leaning tower of Pisa Facts

The leaning tower of Pisa is placed in the Pisa city of the Tuscany region in western Italy. This tower is the last element of the ceremonial complex in the Piazza Dei Miracoli. In addition, this medieval architectural project, which celebrates Italy culture, features a Cathedral complex housing four more monuments – The Cathedral of Pisa, the Bell Tower of Pisa, the Monumental Cemetery, and the Baptistry. We bring some amazing facts about the Leaning Tower of Pisa that you would not have encountered before. So don’t forget to get your Italy visa online to enjoy this fascinating tour to browse these amazing structures in Pisa city.

Unique architectural style & design

A medieval architecture masterpiece built in the Romanesque style. The architects who were involved in designing and building this tower are Bonanno Pisano, Gherardo di Gherardo, Giovanni Pisano, and Giovanni di Simone with the first phase attributed to Bonanno Pisano and Gherardo di Gherardo, and the second phase attributed to Giovanni Pisano and Giovanni di Simone.

The leaning tower was part of a bigger project.

Don’t be surprised here. The leaning tower was not a standalone, independent project but a part of a bigger project that was conceptualized to represent the bell tower of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. The architectural complex involves four other structures: the Cathedral, its Bell Tower, the cemetery, and the Baptistry. This leaning tower was the last structure built on the site.

It took 2 centuries to construct this tower.

It took an incredible 199 years approximately to complete the entire construction of the leaning tower of Pisa. The construction kicked off in 1173 and winded up in 1372. The tower has witnessed several critical battles in the region, so the construction was halted intermittently. The construction of this tower was split into three phases, with the first phase lasting till 1272. During phase 2, the battle of Meloria took place, halting the construction again. From 1284 to 1319, the last floor was added to the tower completing the final phase of the construction. The bell chamber officially marked the construction as completed several years later, in 1372.

The original reason behind the construction

The last element in the monumental architectural complex in the Squares of Miracles was initially created to envy Pisa city among the tourist population. However, the 11th century saw the successful sacking of the Sicilian Palermo, and the governor of Pisa released an order to start the construction of the Cathedral complex.

The initial structure was not meant to be lean.

This tower’s initial structure and design were to build a straight vertical tower. However, the titling or leaning of this tower when the second floor was completed and the bad soil underneath it made it tilt or lean towards the north. The area’s terrain is majorly made of clay, making it not solid enough to hold on to such a tall building. In addition, the tower foundations were created only 3 meters deep. Many researchers have also concluded that if the construction of the leaning tower of Pisa was not done in phases, we might not have a vertical leaning structure today. In fact, the three phases allowed the soil to settle down below else; this structure would have cured itself much earlier.

The inclination of the Tower of Pisa

You may not agree, but the Leaning Tower of Pisa was initially inclined only by 0.2 degrees when the second-floor construction was completed. When the bell chamber was completed in 1372, the tilt reached a total tilt of 1.6 degrees. Towards the 1990s, the lean further increased to 5.5 degrees. Due to several restoration efforts, the tower’s tilt has been reduced to only 3.97 degrees.

Multiple leaning towers in Pisa

There are several leaning towers in Pisa, but none has caught the attention of the tourist world as much as the leaning tower of Pisa, mainly due to its clay soil. The unstable nature of the clay soil has led to several leaning structures in the area built during the same period. As a result, there are close to 10 leaning structures in Pisa city, with the bell towers of the Church of St. Michele Dei Scalzi and the Church of San Nicola being the notable ones.

A UNESCO-certified World Heritage Site

In 1987, UNESCO certified this complex site as a World Heritage Site. This leaning tower, along with the four buildings part of the overall complex at the Square of Miracle, are excellent examples of medieval architectural design and was instrumental in inspiring and influencing the Italian monument art between the 3 centuries when it was built (1173 – 1399)

The tower is curved and leaning.

The tower is not only lean but also curved across several points within its structure. The engineers went on to fix the first tilting of the tower went and built the upper floors taller than the rest leading the structure to be curved at certain points of its structure.

You will have to climb 3-century steps to reach the top

Enjoy picturesque views of the entire Pisa city when you climb to the top of the Pisa tower. But to enjoy the spectacular view, you must climb 296 steps with no lift or escalator available. Climbing up 300 steps will not be an easy task. However, with the effort you take to climb these steps, the result is totally worth it.

Huge bells decorate the landscape of the tower’s top.

The leaning tower has seven huge bells on its top, conceptualized to represent the nearby Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta bell tower. Each bell on top represents and corresponds to the seven musical notes. However, the bells have not rung since the last century. In fact, many engineers have concluded that the vibrations caused by the bell may comprise the structure and make the structure leaner than before.

Length of the Leaning tower of Pisa

The completed tower was 60 meters and approximately 14,500 tonnes. The height is 56.67m on the highest and 55.86m on the lower sides. The outer diameter of the tower base is 15.484 m, with the width of the base walls being 2.4384m.

We all know the existence of this unique tower. The tilting of this tower has made it even more popular in the tourist world than in some Italian cities. Discover unique facets of the gorgeous square of Piazza Dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) on getting your Italy visa online. You can connect with a reliable travel agent who can partner with you through the entire Italy visa online journey.