Simon is obsessed with the Shard. It's a convenient obsession because it's easy to spot, wherever you are in the city.
"The Shard!" He shouts. Really loud. On the bus and the train and the DLR and walking about the city.
I booked tickets for us to go to the top of it on an afternoon after I picked him up from school. It's tricky planning things to do that I don't think the other kids will be too disappointed about missing out on. This one was expensive, so it was a practical choice.
There is a train station really close to Lucas Vale school, and from there it's a really short ride (12 minutes, with only one stop) to the London Bridge Station, which is where the Shard is located. We walked to the station (or rather Simon ran out of excitement) and then we found a small cafe nearby The Shard to eat lunch.
Interestingly, it is jointly owned by a property company and the State of Qatar. Crazy.
It wasn't a perfectly clear day, which was disappointing but those are hard to come by so I'm not complaining. And there was amazing technology up there, where you could look through a camera that showed you what it would look like on a perfectly clear day.