The Shard, London: Part 1 – The View

The Pride of London is the second instalment in the Jaspa’s Journey collection of travel adventure novels for Kids 8-80. This time around, my friends and I embark on a whirlwind tour of London, attempting to solve the riddles of The Path in order to help our new friend Ernest, a Ratses, become a member of the clandestine Ses society known simply as The Pride.

To celebrate The Pride of London’s release, I thought it would be fun to do some posts that feature some of the places mentioned in the book.

Central London, with The Shard in the middle distance towards the left

I’m going to begin with a two-part piece about one of London’s major sites, The Shard. Ironically, The Shard gets only a brief mention in The Pride of London, since at the time the book was written, construction on building had only just begun. Just a few years later, The Shard has become one of the British capital’s most recognisable landmarks.

The River Thames and The Shard

Standing 1016 feet tall, The Shard is a towering skyscraper of glass that dwarfs the rest of London. Looking down on the roofs of London from The View From The Shard (the observation galleries that take up the 68^th to 72^nd storeys) is hard to beat, even from the air.

At the top of The Shard!

Looking west along the Thames

The Shard’s early morning shadow falls northwest across Central London

The West End, with the BT Tower on the right and Wembley Stadium in the distance

Looking east towards Canary Wharf – The pointy building is One Canada Square, the UK’s tallest building before The Shard was constructed

Greenwich (looking east)

South London

Strata SE1

Central London, with St. Paul’s Cathedral

St. Paul’s Cathedral was the tallest building in London until 1939 (when it was topped by the chimneys of Battersea Power Station)

Battersea Power Station (to the west)

HMS Belfast, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, with the East End beyond

HMS Belfast

The Tower of London

Traitor’s Gate, the Tower of London

The White Tower, the Tower of London

Tower Bridge and City Hall (bottom right)

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge’s south tower

The City of London – The ‘Walkie Talkie’ (20 Fenchurch Street: foreground left) has also joined the London Skyline since The Pride of London was written

The Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe)

The Monument – Where both the Great Fire of London and my adventures in London began

The Millennium Bridge

Southwalk Cathedral

Charing Cross station

Building trapped between the tracks outside London Bridge station

The rather plain looking London Bridge

Looking west

The London Eye

Buckingham Palace

The Houses of Parliament

If you look very carefully, you can see Nelson’s Column in the centre of the photo

Royal Courts of Justice (the Law Courts)

Even the biggest sights of London, many of which feature in The Pride of London, seem tiny from way up there. In fact, you can see the whole area in which my adventures take place, like a living version of the map at the start of the book.

This post was inspired by the photo themes of Roofs from Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Ascending from Paula of Lost in Translation, and Tiny from Cheri of The Daily Post.

Feeling even more tiny than normal, looking down on the roofs of London

The first two Jaspa’s Journey adventures, The Great Migration and The Pride of London, are now available in both paperback and ebook formats! Click here for more information. The third instalment, Jaspa’s Waterloo, is scheduled to be released by Speaking Volumes early next year.

Jaspa’s Journey: Perfect for Kids 8 – 80!

If you’re the sort of person that loves experiencing the wonders of culture and history on your travels, why not sign up and follow my continuing Journeys here at Jaspa’s Journal (on WordPress or Bloglovin’), or through my website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr?