View From The Shard, a set on Flickr.
On Friday we took our trip up The Shard. The tickets were bought back in October, and I've been waiting eagerly ever since.When I went to New York over a decade ago I fell in love with skyscrapers. From the ground looking at them is great enough, but to finally get to see London from hundreds of meters up is something I've been waiting for. Until The Shard the tallest building in London was One Canada Square; and London was the only capital in Europe whose tallest building didn't have a public viewing platform.
Not any more. Arriving at the beautiful lobby at the ground floor within your half hour appointed time slot you are shown to the first lift which takes you half way up to the middle lobby.
Here you swap lifts to go up to the 68th floor. This lobby is beautifully decorated with cloud manifestations on the glass. On the 69th floor is the inside viewing lobby - beautiful panoramas all around London.
From here you can walk (or take a very small lift) to the 72nd floor - the outside viewing platform. There are further floors above this for plant and so forth, you can look up and see the structure of the eponymous shards.
The staff are friendly and polite, and you are given as much time as you like to look around. We had a fantastic time - the views are amazing.
Much to the amusement of all they were also cleaning the windows (presumably after the rain in the morning). We were lucky that the rain that had plagued the morning cleared and we got blue sky and some sunshine.
At nearly £30 per person with only £5 concessions it is an expensive day out; but it was absolutely worth every penny.
Via Flickr:
01/02/2013 - Opening Day