The Shard – from a 777
Wednesday, 12 August 2015So often the views out the window are superb, like on Cathay Pacific CX-257 from Hong Kong to London last week. We started off by flying south out of Hong Kong, before turning north and flying right over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.
We continued north across China, passing east of Beijing, but almost directly overhead Taiyuan where I stayed for a night a couple of years ago. Then it was north across Mongolia (been there too), lots of desert until we got north towards the border with Russia. We flew to the east of Ulaanbaatar and once we were over Russia pretty much followed the Trans-Siberian train route across Russia which Maureen and I travelled in 2013. We flew north of Moscow, south of St Petersburg, across the Baltic Sea and touching on the south of Sweden and Norway before we finally got to London.
◄ Looking down on the Shard on the final approach to London’s Heathrow Airport. Look close enough to touch doesn’t it?
▲ The last 10 minutes of the flight were the absolute highlight. As usual there were a few twists and turns slowing us down to get in the line up to land at busy Heathrow, but then we did a nice turn right over The City, London’s financial district. In one view I’ve got three of the city’s iconic nickname buildings: the Walkie Talkie, the Cheesegrater and the Swiss Re Building, AKA The Erotic Gherkin. Before we crossed the Thames for my view of London’s really iconic skyscraper of the moment, The Shard.
◄ Incidentally when I was down at surface level travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway a photo I took one day has ended up as the cover shot of Lonely Planet’s new edition of their guide to the big red train trip.
