Visiting 'Harry Potter's London'

You may remember last week I said I was going to be expanding on a certain walking tour we took in London. Well, major *NERD ALERT*, because I'm here today to talk about the magic that was Harry Potter's London. One of the tours offered by the big bus company was a Harry Potter film locations tour. It was pretty awesome-even for the Muggles amongst us. After taking a boat tour to the Tower of London on Tuesday, we bussed ourselves back across town to Trafalgar Square where we met with our tour guide.

The first place we went along the walking tour was the movie theater Harry, Ron, and Hermione walk past after they escape the Death Eaters in a cafe in The Deathly Hallows, Part 1. It really is quite a cool thing to experience being in the same locations as some of your favorite movie heroes. Just look at Jill's face (who wasn't a huge Harry Potter fan at the start). Also, the city of London might consider a new electrician...How long ago was this movie filmed and the lights are still out!

We walked through the Leicester Square, where all the Harry Potter movies had their red carpet premieres, and head to an authentic British candy store. As the basis for Honeydukes-the kids of the wizarding world's favorite place for sweets-the tour took us in to Hardys Sweet Shop. The shop employees were nice enough to explain how the sweets they carried correlated to the movies, and we got to sample some of Dumbledore's favorite candies.

 Some of the other stops on the tour included the Amnesty International building where JK Rowling worked as a researcher and the building that was used as the Ministry of Magic in the films.

(Top) Outside the Ministry of Defense (the Ministry of Magic in the movies)
(Bottom) Harry and friends take polyjuice potion outside this door before entering the Ministry

If you watch The Deathly Hallows, you'll see these two locations

(Top) Ron keeps watch outside the ministry on this corner. (Bottom) The "inspiration" for Diagon Alley

The tour was fantastic, because at each location, the guide would explain what we were looking at and then explain the scene in the movie. She would even show a movie still to give you the visual reminder (or first look if you were like Josh). I have to admit that I was pretty excited the whole time, but then I'd look at K and her eyes would be huge! Greatest payoff ever. 

On each of the girls' birthdays, we let them choose one thing that they wanted to do in addition to something that we chose to do. Although little J's birthday came first in the week, I am skipping to explaining K's day because it fits the feel of this post more. (I promise to expand on little J's day later, though!) As her choice, K wanted to spend her day shopping. So we did. We went to Hamley's world famous toy store. We had planned to do more shopping that day, but that store ended up taking about THREE HOURS. I think if I was a kid, it would be amazing. But as a parent-conscious of the exchange rate from dollar to pound-it gave me hives. London as a whole was expensive, but I feel like they really jacked up the prices in the toy store. How many parents were going in and buying their kids some really neat toy just to say they got something in London? (Shamefully raising my hand) In my defense, I made them keep it to about 5 GBP. I know, I know....softie.

AN-Y-WAY... after leaving the toy store, we realized we didn't have that much time before we had to get on to K's surprise event. We hopped on the tube and headed to Kings Cross Station and the infamous Platform 9 3/4. It's actually quite cute the way they have it set up. There's the normal signs pointing you in the direction of platforms 9 and 10, but as you walk towards them, off to the side is the platform every young wizard takes to Hogwarts. It's an adorable little trolley half embedded in the wall, complete with Hedwig the Owl. There's even a photographer set up with the four house scarves ready and waiting. Of course, they both chose Gryffindor. For a small fee, you can purchase the photo taken by the professional in the Platform 9 3/4 shop. But, they are understanding and let you pose for your own camera if you'd like. Naturally they're out to make money, but they aren't forcing you to exclusively purchase from them, like some places. I truly appreciate that.

After posing for pictures, perusing the shops, and picking up our super cool Platform 9 3/4 train tickets, we sat down for lunch/early dinner in the train station. After dinner, we boarded the Hogwarts Express (or the overground train to Watford Junction). It was about an hour ride outside of London on a very packed train. That's okay...we made like the locals and sat in the aisles. Once you leave the station at Watford Junction, there are signs everywhere telling you how to go about catching the shuttle to Harry Potter Studios, which was K's surprise from us. Both girls were excited to go, actually, even though Little J isn't a huge HP fan.

When you first enter the building, you are greeted by huge portraits of the actors in character. You get to see them in their first year and in their seventh. It really gets you excited to enter the tour. Once you enter, you're shown a short video, where the actors tell you a little about what you're about to see.  A tour guide tells you the do's and don't of the tour area. What you see inside are real movie sets-not replicas. There are costumes actually worn by the characters and props seen throughout the various movies. They don't want any touching and breaking or chewed up gum on these precious pieces of cinematic history. After the tour guide finished her spiel, she asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday that day. K got so excited, raised her hand, and scooted her way up front. The tour guide said, "as you would hear around your eleventh birthday in the wizarding world, 'Welcome to Hogwarts'." And with that, she and a very excited, newly eleven year old K, pushed open the doors to The Great Hall. And really from here, it's all a blur. I was so caught up in the excitement of Hogwarts that I can only show you pictures from here.

I know we saw clothing, wigs and accessories worn by all the actors. We got incredibly close to Hedwig the Owl-the real one! We saw a lady whose contribution to the movies was to hand feather the animatronic birds, like Fawkes the Phoenix. We strolled Diagon Alley and Privet Drive. We saw the concept art for so many of the places and creatures in the films. We rode broomsticks and flew cars. We posed for pictures on the very same covered bridge that was destroyed in the Battle of Hogwarts. And I for one got a little misty eyed as we passed through the room hosting the model of Hogwarts. Plus, there were so many little things about the movies we learned that we could never have known without this visit, and I'm so glad we did. We spent hours soaking up as much of this magic as we could and it still feels like it wasn't enough. It was a definite must for any Potterhead.

If you should ever get the chance to visit London for any amount of time, I would very highly recommend The Harry Potter Studio Tour. Who knows, you might just leave a brand new fan of the boy wizard!