View From The Shard
I love going up a tall building (even though I’m scared of heights!) and looking down across the city. The Empire State Building in New York is one of my favourites and also the Eiffel Tower in Paris. London has only recently added a tall addition to the city with The Shard. I hadn’t been up it yet and when my dad came to visit last week it was a perfect excuse to enjoy the view!
We booked tickets for 6pm as I thought it would be a nice time to go before it got dark. It’s really easy to get to The Shard, you can get the Underground to London Bridge and then just follow the lines on the ground at the station round to the entrance. You can either buy your tickets in advance online or at the entrance. We already had our tickets so just had to go through the security section and then into the lifts. There were two lifts to get to the viewing platform and inside each it was quite cool with graphics on the roof of it and then the usual counting up style display on the screen.
We arrived at the first viewing platform, level 68 and it was a bit cloudy but still had a really fantastic view. It’s all glass so you aren’t outside and fully protected. The views let you see all round the city of London, things to look out for include St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London, The Gherkin, London Eye and Tower Bridge. There is a champagne bar so enjoy a glass whilst you look round, we had ours pre-booked with the ticket so just exchanged the voucher for a nice bubbly glass of Lanson.
Remember and look down and see all the red buses and people who look like dots…
And then up…
You can then go up a further couple of floors to level 72 by taking the stairs, this brings you out to another viewing area and this one again is protected but has an open roof, so you really are outside with this one! It gives you a slightly better look and it’s a great way to look at the sculpture of The Shard building.
After a good hour taking in the views , the sun started to set and so we took the lift back down and set off for dinner!
Tickets for the View At The Shard are priced from £24.95 for an adult and with champagne at £32.95. Book your view for The Shard online.
