On Top of the World’s Largest Clock Tower
The Makkah Clock Tower is to date officially the biggest clock tower in the world.
Not only did it claim a spot for having the largest clock, but it also made a name for being a top contestant among the tallest buildings in the world having a staggering height of 2130 ft. (650 m.)
To put that into perspective, let’s compare how many floors of a conventional residential building it would take to reach that height.
A standard housing complex floor is about 10 ft. high. Therefore, if we divide 2130 by 10, we will get the total number of floors that can be built inside that building, and the number is 213!
However, the tower only has 120 floors as the floor-ceiling height differences are more than that of a typical building.
I had the honor of visiting and climbing up the topmost floors of this tower back in 2020, just before Covid hit hard.
The topmost 4 floors of the tower host a huge museum, which is known as the clock tower museum. Each of the floors embodies and showcases unique subject matters.
As I enjoyed the museum, I took the liberty of clicking some photos. I’ll share some of them with you today along with the stories.
At the very end, I’ll also share some pictures I took from the observatory, to show you what the world looks like from the top of the world’s largest clock tower.
The journey started from the bottom.
I and my family had visited Makkah as part of a religious pilgrimage.
Although we knew about the clock tower, we had no idea whether it was even possible to climb it.
I had a friend of mine by the name of Mahmud, who lives there. And it was he who informed us of the process of getting into the tower and having an experience of a lifetime. For that, we are still indebted to him.
The process started with buying tickets.
After buying the tickets, we were led to some sort of a hall where a not-so-long documentary was displayed in front of all the visitors. It was mostly about the clock tower and its architectural wonders.
As we finished watching the documentary, our real journey started.
We were then directly taken to the 4th floor of the museum (also the highest floor of the tower) through a fast elevator. This particular floor displayed models of different planets and stars including the planets of our solar system and the sun. It was very educational. And I personally found it entertaining as I am keen on learning about the secrets of the universe.
We roamed around this floor and reached a staircase that led to the floor below it, i.e. the 3rd floor of the museum.
This floor holds educational content about the sun and the moon, and their relation to how human societies functioned in the past.
We then moved to another floor below and found more educational content about the history of the measurement of time. This part is, no doubt, something that a history lover would enjoy to the fullest.
And finally, we arrived at the 1st floor, the lowest floor of the museum. And I would argue that this floor is the most fascinating of them all.
This floor holds and displays the detailed planning, structure, design, and architecture of the clock tower. It also shows how the clock tower went through different stages as it was being built.
I took the most pictures at this part of the museum, as I was then an engineering student, and such a display of engineering wonders really resonated with my inner inquisitiveness for more knowledge.
This particular floor also gives room to a huge balcony circling the whole clock tower, otherwise known as the observatory. And this is the most enjoyable part of the tower as you can stand at 1589 ft. high and watch the whole of Makkah with all of its hilly and mountainous terrains.
I enjoyed every part of this experience and wish to relive it.
And here’s a bonus video taken from the observatory:
