Up the Guinness and lard (Shard)

View from the Shard 72nd floor
View from the Shard 72nd floor

We caught the 09:01 from Berhamsted to Euston, at that tome an a Saturday you can park on the road near the station. Our mission to visit The View From The Shard, the new pointy building in London. Seats were easily found on the train and it arrived on time. Next was 68 bus to Waterloo bridge followed by a leisurely walk along the Southbank. We dipped in land a bit at the Golden Hind, and walked through Borough Market which was pretty packed and full of enticing food offerings. We found the Shard but our tickets were timed for 11:30 and we were early the nan an on the door said we would have to come back at the right time! Coffee time then.

Queuing was a breeze with plenty of security thrown in, including bag x-ray, metal detector and for me a frisk with a hand held detector because I set off the walk through one. Next we were herded to a lift which has video screens in the ceiling, the lift attendant told us we were travelling at 6 metres a second, and that was just about all the time she had before we arrived on floor 33.

View inside the Shard observation floor

Out of the lift round the corner and into another which dropped us off at floor 69, just as quickly as the first one. I asked ho many floors a day the lift man did he said they could only do one hour a day. Perhaps something to do with the rapid change on pressure that makes your ears pop.

The view from floor 70 is great far higher than the London eye. From this deck we saw the maintenance crews abseiling done the building.

We went up a couple more floors where you are more exposed to the elements, but still behind glass which makes taking photos a bit trick. I found that my polarising filter helped quite a bit. To leave you just do the same lifts but in reverse, and there is no security.

We wandered round borough market twisting all the cheese on offer, but did both get a halloumi burger each from a stall run by a couple of French hippies, I never knew the French had any concept of vegetarianism. We found a scarce spot to sit in the local church yard to eat our burgers the headed across the river to walk along the north bank of the Thames.

Church outside Borough Market

We wandered and ambled along until eventually we came across Covent. Garden, but realised that our heart was not into shopping. So we headed towards Dustin but not before a visit to a travel book shop and a quick stop in a shop on Tottenham Court Road where I purchased a USB extension cable, for the Raspberry Pi webcam set up. We then jumped back on a bus back to Euston and caught the 16:54 fast train back to Berkhamsted. We popped into Waitrose and got some salad stuff to eat , then went home had something to eat and watched the excellent BBC HD Australia documentary.