Framedlight

The Shard 'experience' opened in the golden ticket hall, from where we were ushered through a security barrier to the bright orange lift. This takes you up to floor 68 and the inside viewing platform. There were quite a number of people visiting at the same time as us but the space was large, enough to take us all. The windows were all spotlessly clean but the day was murky and the visibility fairly poor. You can have a guided tour using headphones but we didn't choose those, preferring to use the signboards dotted around to tell us what we were looking at. Unfortunately these all pointed out distant objects whereas the things at our feet looked far more interesting. We almost missed the set of steps that took us up a further floor to a more exposed platform, which was pretty interesting architecturally as we could see the construction of the cone that sits on top of the Shard. There is a bar here if anyone needs a stiff drink to fortify themselves. We watched a poor lad...

At the end of May this year we went for a trip up to the top of the Shard. Late May was not the best time to choose, a cold crisp winter's day would have been better and then we could have watched the lights come up over London as the sun went down. However we had to make do with a rather dank and drizzly May day. I took some more 'architectural' pictures, which I converted to monochrome, and ones of the view which I intended for colour. Here are the monochrome set. The first one is taken from inside Guy's Hospital grounds. The views looking up are taken from the very top which is open to the sky.