I used to love sliding down the banisters at my grandmother's house. The one from the second floor to the main floor was especially fun because it was long(-ish) and had a 180-degree bend in it at the landing.
But I would really like to slide down this banister. I wonder if they rent out the opportunity to do so at various times. The outer banister would be fun if it were continuous. The inner banister looks continuous, though it's a pretty tight spiral.
From some email I received:
Australia ------ Spiral Staircase in Sydney - This amazing spiral staircase is located at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney. It is five stories high and makes your body turn about 6.5 revolutions when you climb to the top, but there's an exit on each floor.
Here's another that would be fun to slide down, and in this case it looks as if the outer spiral would work just fine.
The description I was sent for this staircase:
New Mexico -- a Miraculous Staircase located in Saint Joseph church at Loretto Chapel in Santa Fé,. 136 years after it was built in 1878, it still confounds architects, engineers, and master craftsmen in the physics of its construction and remains inexplicable in view of its baffling design. The unusual helix shaped spiral staircase has two complete 360° turns, stands 20 feet high up to the choir loft and has no center pole to support it as most circular stairways have. Its entire weight rests solely on its base and against the choir loft - a mystery that defies all laws of gravity, it should have crashed to the floor the moment anyone stepped on it. Yet it is still in daily use for over a hundred years. The risers of the 33 steps are all of the same height. Made of an apparently extinct wood species, it was constructed with only square wooden pegs without glue or nails. At the time it was built, the stairway had no banisters. These were added 10 years later in 1888 by Phillip A. Hesch at the Sisters' request for safety sake.
One of my all-time favourites was the staircase of the Alabama Capitol building that we visited during the summer when I was seven-years-old. I think it was dad's suggestion there that this would be a great banister to slide down.