London - Day 10: Westminster Abbey, 10 Downing St, New Scotland Yard, The Shard

Super strange to be writing this on the day that we should be doing our final packing in Vienna, and starting our journey back to NZ!!

Today we visited Westminster Abbey for private prayer (no photographs) before heading back to No. 10 Downing Street. Today the large barricades had been removed and we were able to get a little closer and see the door to number 10! Didn't see Boris though!!

From here a walk down to New Scotland Yard passing Winston Churchill's War Rooms (closed due to Covid-19), then walked up to Leicester Square again before getting the Tube back to London Bridge.

Due to Covid the View from the Shard is closed, so we decided to freshen up, change, then take a short stroll to The Shard where we headed up, very quickly, to the 31st floor (of 95) to Aqua Shard for drinks and nibbles. The view was absolutely amazing!! We were the only ones there as it only opened at the time we arrived due to amended hours because of Covid. I have to say the services was amazing. David Boyd, the Front-of-House manager at Aqua Shard made sure our visit was great. He even had a small plate of fruit, chocolate sauce and yummy wafers for the boys, on the house!! After a couple of drinks and our nibbles, it was time to check the bathrooms out before leaving. They were very different to any I've seen before!

We, as New Zealanders, certainly were very popular with the multi-cultural staff (Irish, Romanian, French, Brazilian etc).