{"id":5884,"date":"2018-10-31T15:52:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T15:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5884"},"modified":"2018-11-01T12:18:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T12:18:44","slug":"halloween-at-the-view-from-the-shard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/2018\/10\/halloween-at-the-view-from-the-shard\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween at the View from the Shard"},"content":{"rendered":"

LittleBird\u2019s Sam went to the View from the Shard with her daughter for our exclusive Halloween event! Read on to find out more\u2026<\/h3>\n

I don\u2019t know why we\u2019d not yet made it all the way to the top of The Shard before. I\u2019ve celebrated an anniversary in one of the restaurants, but the View from The Shard has been on my To Do list since, well, forever. So, when my daughter, Lucy, and I were offered tickets to the Halloween event, we jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n

Early starts don\u2019t faze us, (lucky us!), even so, I loved being able to step out of the concourse at London Bridge station straight onto the Shard\u2019s front entrance. We joined a queue of cute kids in spooky hats, dresses and cloaks waiting to get inside, then followed airport-style security to the lifts. We could feel the excitement levels building as everyone shuffled along the corridor.<\/p>\n

But then this is an award-winning attraction \u2013 one of the top five tallest buildings<\/strong> in Europe, the highest in Western Europe \u2013 and very soon we were all going to be more than 300m high!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The lifts travel at 6 metres per second, counting off the floors, views from the top (in all seasons) flashing on the ceiling, taking just 30 seconds to reach floor 33. We swapped lifts for the second leg; this time one of the staff jumped in for a ride to work (telling visitors about the view \u2013 nice job!) landing at level 68. Breakfast bags were thrust into our hands with a cheery greeting then we were waved to stairs leading to level 69.<\/p>\n

Youngsters sat in huddles around the glass wall perimeter, hungrily opening their breakfast bags. Lucy and I were keen to go up the highest accessible level, as far as humans can humanly go\u2026 Level 72!<\/strong><\/p>\n

No-one else was up there (probably because free, fresh coffees were being served downstairs \u2013 what a nice touch!<\/em>). Level 72 is exposed to the elements, but it was designed (by Italian architect Renzo Piano) to fend off gusts of wind, so you barely feel the breeze.<\/p>\n

Blessed with a fine, crisp autumnal day, the skies were blue and the views\u2026 eye-popping! London looked beautiful from every angle of the 360\u00b0<\/strong> skyscraper: north, south, east and west. The Thames glistened in the sun. Sightlines stretched for miles and the rooftops\u2026\u00a0 Ok, so as anyone who\u2019s been on the London Eye will know, the city\u2019s rooftops are not much to shout about. \u201cLondon\u2019s buildings look old-fashioned and quite plain,\u201d Lucy said. \u201cThat\u2019s rooftops for you,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Spectacular Views<\/h3>\n

Tower Bridge<\/strong> stood out as the striking wonder it is, The engineering marvel took 12 years to build between 1888-1894, and 22,000 litres of blue paint were used to paint it, and gosh, it looks gorgeous from up here. Next time we\u2019ll bring our sketchbooks!<\/p>\n

The aerial view of HMS Belfast<\/strong> is also impressive. As a World War 2, D-Day, Royal Navy survivor she is worthy of a good few minutes of respectful admiration \u2013 if you want somewhere to go after, I suggest there.<\/p>\n

From here, the river snakes its way toward the Dome at Greenwich<\/strong>, passing the London Eye, Big Ben<\/strong> (although the Elizabeth Tower will be encased in scaffolding until 2021) and Shakespeare\u2019s Globe<\/strong> \u2013 all sights that a 9-year-old recognises.<\/p>\n

I nostalgically studied the green areas of south London where I first lived, until we spied Wembley Stadium<\/strong>, which delighted Lucy, who then looked long and hard for other landmarks near our NW home.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After a while, chilly fingers forced us back down to enclosed Level 69. It was time for us to snack while crowd \u2013 and cloud \u2013 watching. (Lucy has a gift for turning clouds into animals and objects, it has to be said, so this was fun).<\/p>\n

It looked like all<\/em> the kids were really enjoying today\u2019s event; two face-painters were turning their angelic faces into little devils and vampires. Activity Sheets \u2013 included in the goody bag \u2013 were being pressed against the glass and busily filled in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were to design and make your own Shard, what would you make it from and why?<\/em>\u201d Ice cream!<\/strong> We heard a girl exclaim. There was ice cream on sale, maybe that\u2019s what she had meant? It\u2019s never too early for ice cream, is it? But we\u2019d had plenty to eat (thumbs up for the snacks).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We gave the Hamley\u2019s life-size teddy a quick cuddle then checked out the \u2018loo with the view\u2019<\/strong> \u2013 a floor-to-ceiling vista over The Tower of London. Looking down on mind-blowing, ancient history from a lav that\u2019s almost twice as high as any other viewing platform in the capital is quite a trip.<\/p>\n

A group of older girls accompanying our descent said that the experience had been \u201cBRILLIANT!<\/strong>\u201d Lucy said how exciting it had been to see so many landmarks from one place. And a friend we\u2019d bumped into said her kids had really loved dressing up in Halloween outfits for the event.<\/p>\n

Would we go back, Yes! Will you love it too? Of course. I can\u2019t wait to return this Christmas.<\/p>\n

Fancy coming to our exclusive Christmas event at the Shard? Pop over to the LittleBird website and purchase your tickets<\/strong><\/a>, they’re sure to be a sell out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LittleBird\u2019s Sam went to the View from the Shard with her daughter for our exclusive Halloween event! Read on to find out more\u2026 I don\u2019t know why we\u2019d not yet made it all the way to the top of The Shard before. I\u2019ve celebrated an anniversary in one of the restaurants, but the View from … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2656,10],"tags":[2077,2915,248,161,2908,2912,1744,2913,2138,220,2906,2909,1476,2911,2907,254,2878,2914,2910,1042],"class_list":["post-5884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-families","category-ideas","category-inspiring-families","tag-activities-in-london","tag-breakfast-at-the-shard","tag-christmas","tag-costumes","tag-exclusive-event","tag-families-for-less","tag-families-in-london","tag-family-fun-for-less","tag-fun-for-families","tag-halloween","tag-halloween-at-the-shard","tag-halloween-event","tag-littlebird-days-out","tag-littlebird-fun","tag-littlebirddaysout","tag-london","tag-london-days-out","tag-tallest-building","tag-the-shard-and-littlebird","tag-the-view-from-the-shard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5884"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5904,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions\/5904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebird.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}