Skyscraper "Shard" - "Splinter" - really like a shard of glass: Brilliant narrow pyramid (used in the construction of 11 thousand glass panels), as if cleft above. "Shard", built on the south bank of the Thames in 2012, three months was considered the tallest building in Europe until it was overtaken by Moscow skyscraper "Mercury City Tower." Now the British have to call the "Shard" the tallest building in Western Europe.

309, 6 meters - because of this height in Britain were fierce debate: should we measure London skyscrapers with the continent or better to keep its skyline? Opponents skyscrapers lost, "Shard" was built. Erected on the site of his modest dvadtsatichetyrёhetazhnoy tower "Sausvork Towers" - remove it and put something huge was the idea of ​​a London entrepreneur Irvine Sellar. The "Shard" designed by Renzo Piano, the famous Italian architect, author of the Paris Pompidou Center. Piano argued that despises the high-rise buildings - but, apparently, not too much, just Sellar was able to persuade him. Sellar said that persuaded during lunch, and drunk all the time was against it, and then picked up the menu and began sketching it on an iceberg, as if coming out of the Thames.

Later, Piano said that inspired by passing a number of railway lines, spiers London churches, which in the XVIII century, wrote Canaletto, and the masts of sailing ships. Hard to say, like if all this "splinter", but the debate later, he was standing - 72 floors of offices, restaurants, hotel rooms and suites.

For the tourist skyscraper is interesting primarily for its upper floors - there is an observation deck, which are higher than any other in London almost doubled. Site opened in February 2013 and the first three months they have visited more than 300 thousand people. Tickets are expensive, it is better to buy them on the internet, will be cheaper.

Tourist rises to a high-speed elevator (it is unlikely he thus knows that once people have got stuck in it), and is on a narrow area with glass walls. Finding a free place through the tourist sees his own reflection panorama of the city from the height of helicopter flight - small "London Eye", a toy Cathedral of St. Paul, pathetic skyscrapers City and the Isle of Dogs. In good weather, the range of viewing the tower - 64 kilometers, and in bad - for a fee you can take advantage of high-tech telescopes, showing views of London in the record. Visitors allowed from 9 am to 10 pm, so that they can enjoy both sunrises and sunsets.

72 floor - the so-called outdoor area (of course, it is open only in part). Strong wind noise reminds tourists, how high is the attraction.