Shard or Eye

Went started the morning with a visit to Londons tallest tower which they call the Shard.  We had to decide between the London Eye which is the big Ferris Wheel or this building, both which have  overpriced entry tickets.  We picked the Shard as we could stay at the top for as long as we wanted and to reduce the risk of spending 30 minutes with potentially smelly or rude tourists in a glass cabin.  The Shard is named for its appearance of shards of glass leaning together to make a tower.  Britons are clever at naming their buildings as other building that were within view of our platform are named the Gherkin , Cheesegrater,  and Walkie Talkie.  The view was good but it was an overcast London day. I swear I could feel the building slightly sway but no one else in the family sensed any movement.

Afterwards we got back on the underground to get to Wimbledon.  We had a 90 minute tour of the grounds which took us to the press areas,  players lounges and eventually Centre Court.  We visited the museum afterwards for a complete history of Wimbledon.  It was cool to see the place I watched on TV.  Not sure if the boys enjoyed it as much as me.

Stamford Bridge was on our way back from Wimbledon so we got off the tube for a tour of the stadium where Chelsea FC plays.  We toured the locker rooms,  press rooms,  sat in the benches and shopped.  It was neat to see a stadium design just for soccer. I also noticed that they don’t overcharge for concessions like they do at our stadiums. I think Stamford Bridge holds around 40k people but you are really close to the action.  This stadium is scheduled to be replaced in a few years to increase the capacity to 60k fans.

After dinner at home we ventured back out to check out the Knightsbridge shopping district.  It was raining pretty hard by now but that doesn’t stop us at home.   When we got out of the tube, you could tell we were in the fancier part of London with the high end shops and the Harrods store around the corner.  While we were walking to Harrods,  we passed by a chrome plated mercedes SLR (almost $500k when new) stuck in traffic with Kuwait license plates and a few Lamborghini Aventadors ($400k) also just idling along in the traffic.  These guys probably just dropped off their significant others at the Harrods as I was amazed at the pricey stuff for sale and the people carrying multiple Harrods shopping bags out.

By the time we made it back home my fitness tracker showed over 20k steps.  That was a long day!