Chicago - Willis Tower

I'm still hanging on to the wall of the building! 

Throughout our travels in Europe in 2010 and then North America this year and last, whenever an opportunity presents itself to climb something high we usually do it. The basilica of St Peter’s in the Vatican, random church towers in Florence, (not the Eiffel Tower, but only because it was CLOSED when we were there), some tower in Istanbul, the Empire State Building in New York, etc. The highest building in North America was certainly no exception!

They have a skydeck, which, of course, scared me a lot! I didn’t want to let go of the wall of the actual building when I went out on it and looking down was out of the question. I did laugh when a mother and her husband and kid were taking pics and the mother did NOT want to go out there. She eventually did, and she looked awesome, crouching and not looking down. It was pretty funny, just before she crawled out there, her kid was jumping up and down on the skydeck and her dad was very firmly saying ‘DON’T DO THAT!’ Will was a lot braver than me. It’s not fun being able to see the street hundreds of metres below you. Who knows how thick that glass is? Or how strong it actually is!!

The actual skydeck was opened in 1974 and is on the 103rd floor, which is 1353 feet or 412 metres above the ground. Apparently you can feel it sway on a windy day, but I am glad we didn't go up when that was happening! As it was a reasonably clear day we were able to see a fair way - the plains of Illinois, across Lake Michigan to Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. I assume that that was we could see! It took about 60 or 70 seconds to zip up the tower, which was pretty quick! The glass balconies can take 4.5 metric tonnes (who wants to test that out) and were opened to the public in 2009. 

Eek! 

So brave. 

Definitely a great place to take pictures of Chicago from on high. As with the Empire State Building, lots of tourists all jostling for the best picture-taking spot. :)