Last weekend I was in London for the Shine walk, which is a half marathon (or full marathon of you're crazy!!) to raise money for cancer research. The idea was to go down to London, walk the walk, have some alcohol, sleep and come home again. However, the walk took me much longer than planned so no drinks afterwards. A couple of people suggested that instead of coming straight home we might want to see if we could get tickets to the Sky Garden which as they were free, I duly did.
Now the Sky Garden is described as a unique public space that spans three stories and offers views across London whilst wandering through landscaped gardens. Obviously I thought it sounded quite cool but I was blown away by the awesomeness of it. If you are ever in London you can book FREE TICKETS here (believe me, nothing in London is free!!!) It's situated on the top three stories of the "Walkie Talkie" building at 20 Fenchurch Street and is close to loads of tube stations and about a 5 minute walk from the Tower of London which is where we walked from.
It's impressive from the outside too:
The email and the tickets that we received from the Sky Garden did say that the time we had booked was our queuing time rather than our entrance time as you do have to show ID and go through airport style security to gain entrance. Luckily the views are pretty cool and it actually only took us 10 minutes to get through security:
Once you exit the lift at the top you are in this unbelievable space:
Not only do you have this amazing space inside with plenty of foliage, plants and spaces to sit down, there is also a viewing platform where you can see some of the best sights that London has to offer including the Shard, Tower Bridge, the Gherkin and out to Canary Wharf and Wembley:
For my 40th birthday last year, we went to the top of the Shard which cost about £26 each and this was far superior. I would recommend doing this first and saving your Shard money to have food and drink at the Sky Garden. I'd happily go back time and time again.
I honestly could have happily stayed here all day, found a little corner with a comfy chair and a book and not moved. Your time is limited to an hour but there didn't appear to be anyone monitoring this. There was even a vodka bar so more reason to stay all day:
Sitting here looking out at the City skyline! Awesome! Next time, I think we'll go back at night and have a proper drink. There is also a cafe and a brassiere but I that was slightly out of our price range on this occasion.
Genuinely the only downside that I could see to the Sky Garden was the queue for toilet and the time restriction, apart from that I have nothing but superlatives to describe how great it was. Have you ever been? What did you think?
