All photos of The Shard dated 2015-2016 are the actual ones and were taken with iPhone 5s.

The Shard is a sky scraper located in the London Borough of Southwark and is currently the tallest building in the European Union; with 87 floors it’s peaking at just over one thousand feet. The Shard is a multi-purpose building. The lower half serves as a very prestigious office space to a number of firms, such as the Middle Eastern broadcaster Al Jazeera, corporate finance advisor Duff & Phelps Corporation and London campus for Warwick Business School, just to name a few. The upper half of the tower is dedicated to the high life. There are residential apartments for more permanent residents of the capital but if you are here temporarily, it is possible to stay at the Shangri-La Hotel.

It is a fantastic place to celebrate a special occasion whilst watching a sunset over the London skyline as there are three restaurants: Chinese restaurant Hutong, Rainer Becker’s Oblix, Aqua Shard where you will find the best of contemporary British cuisine or Shangri-La’s restaurants: Gong, Ting and Lang.

The Shard is also a popular tourist destination as it serves as an observatory platform from the top floors where you can get a 360 degrees view of London. You have to buy tickets either online or on the day for “The View from The Shard”. You are escorted upstairs through innovative lifts and then are left free to roam around a couple of floors and take photos and visit a gift shop. There are also multi-lingual interactive digital screens which you can use to learn about famous landmarks and buildings, as well as see what they look like during different times of day.

I especially love the design of The Shard’s pinnacle because during more misty periods, it looks like the building is never ending as it gently blends in with the clouds. That image always makes me think of Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale.

Recently I visited The Shard in the wee hours of the morning to do a yoga class. It was a great experience. Not only is yoga great for mind, body and soul but doing it in such a location is definitely inspiring. The teachers are fantastic too and you don’t have to be an expert to participate in a class as several exercises are presented simultaneously in order to accommodate different levels of proficiency. I have done some other yoga classes with both Mandy and Leo before at other great locations in London and would thoroughly recommend the company – Yogasphere. Incidentally, this trip was a gift to me from my daughter last Christmas. So anybody looking for ideas on how to shower your beloved mum with presents be it for Mother’s day, her birthday or Christmas, I can reassure you that this would definitely be a good one!