sent from: Esher, Surrey, UK. destination: Bombay, India

After the abstraction that is Roman London [see #3.36], we had the opportunity to consider the very real London from the Shard (aka The Fortress of Mordor/the tallest building in Europe). There are few places to look down on London from above, fewer still freely available to the public. No natural features atop which you can take in the city from above, such as Twin Peaks in San Francisco, or the Tibidabo in Barcelona, Montmartre in Paris.
Seeing the jumble of buildings old, new and newest, the old carved up between roads, railway lines and sandwiched in ever tighter corners, it had the feeling of a child’s toy box contents upended on to the floor. In its seeming disorder and cramped aspect I was reminded of a newer, also restless and even more crowded place – Bombay.
On the ground the realities of those two places are v. different but I couldn’t shake the feeling while gazing down, down, down.