The Shard re-visited

I visited The Shard in February when it was one of the only two days of zero visibility since they have opened - it was so disappointing as can be seen here. Fortunately we were given a full refund by way of a free gift voucher and told to re-book another date when the weather would be better.

So my friend and I re-booked to visit today, as today is her birthday and we thought...end of May...lovely weather, a good way to celebrate her birthday. We could not have been more wrong - London was cold and raining and grey and awful!

The visibility was not as bad as the last time, at least we could see something. It was just a pity that we could not see London sparkling under sunny skies with the blue Thames twisting between the cityscape. The Thames looked brown and dull, the windows had big raindrops on them so it spoilt any chance of clear photos, and the horizon was a haze. The staff were very obliging and helped to identify all the famous buildings - we saw the new Walkie Talkie and the Cheese Grater (who thinks up these nicknames?) as can be seen here

There seemed to be many German tourists and we spoke to one woman who had her young son with her - I wondered why the boy was out of school and why there were there so many German visitors...then I realised, they must be the football supporters.