Two words ... HARRY POTTER

Eeeeek! It was finally time. Hannah had her Hufflepuff scarf in her bag, we had the tickets and we were on the train. E x c i t e m e n t ! ! !



Warning: We took a lot of photos. I will try and limit them, noting that a number of my students have said it is boring to have lots of photos.



We did have to catch a bus to get to the tour, luckily they provide one for a small cost and it comes with a welcoming movie with a movie star from the movie explaining what will happen. 

We started our journey down a long corridor filled with quotes from the characters and being that we were in England, we promptly banged into Dan's cousin from Christchurch and his family. They had spent 6 hours there!!! Panic, would we have enough time being that it was a 6pm entry. Eeek!



And finally, we were there. And the Harry Potter memorabilia hit us in the faces ... look it's Hermione, look it's Luna, look it's Ron ... such joy.

Once in we watch a few clips and then it was on to explore. Here are the highlights in photos.


- The Great Hall - 

Hannah is standing with the Hufflepuff uniforms.

Note: It is a special celebration around the Goblet of Fire so this featured a few times.










Some other highlights. All those that are Harry Potter fans should be able to comment below with something that they see that made them happy. I know I should tell you all about the different things you will see but to be honest if you don't know what the things are then its time to stop living under a rock, read the books and watch the movies. Your time will not be wasted. xo







(All the wands of the characters)























The whole tour was amazing. We filled the 4 hours we had but we could have been there for many more hours, however, they do insist on closing at 10pm each night. The whole place is filled with props, costumes and scenery from all the movies. They explain the process used to create different parts of the movie or props. You can touch things and experience so many parts of it all. You can also try things like riding a broomstick or dressing up as a movie extra. Hannah and I had a go, such fun!

I don't think you even have to be a big Harry Potter fan to feel amazed at the level of detail and creativity put into the making of these movies. It was such a great evening and a definite highlight for all of us.








Comments

  1. Allan RobertsonOctober 3, 2018 at 1:09 AM

    OK. I am officially jealous. I have always been vetoed by 'she who must be obeyed' when I have wanted to visit. I did sneak into a dining hall in Oxford that had been used to shoot some interiors but it does not hold a candle to this. Brillant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 4, 2018 at 12:00 PM

    Exploriarmus Worldicus! WOW just WOW team! Thought I'd missed this post, so glad I trawled and found. I recall Ann-Marie saying it was outstanding and your Blog does your visit justice - ka pai Spraggs :) Knowing the sheer scale and detail of each movie, they have paid such a cool homage to HP World :) R Dan travelled to Scotland with his Grams and traversed the Glenfinnan Viaduct used for the flying car scene. We've visited Alnwick Castle and Malham Cove 'Up North' tiny pieces of the set really but so cool to know 'stuff' was shot there! Brilliant Blog guys - your enthusiasm shines through x Really would love to do this if we ever get the opp :) x

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All roads lead to ...

Image
Before we left the beautiful city of Florence, we had one more place to visit. The Cathedral of the Basilica. So after packing up our gear, finding a place to leave our bags for the day, we headed through the already hot streets to stand in line. And the line was long, and it wasn't even opening time.  Once the doors opened the line moved quickly and in no time we were in the Cathedral. We weren't too sure what to expect, but clearly, they had spent most of the money and energy on designing the outside of the building. It was still very large and had some lovely features. The dome was particularly stunning. There was a whole mass happening in one corner, and you couldn't even hear it. Amazing how these old churches were designed to accommodate multiple things happening.   We discovered that the crypt was included in our pass, so we thought we would head down to discover it. Some of us were a bit nervous at first, however, we soon discovered it w
Read more

Addio Roma

Image
Packing up and trying to work out what to do with our gear is never that fun, however, our kind Air BnB host had allowed us to leave our bags in the apartment till we left at 4pm. This meant we could still tick off a couple of destinations without carrying 10kg or so on our backs.  Today's destinations were the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. The bus ride was easy and the walk through the little Italian streets made it quite delightful. You can always tell you are getting close though by the increase in tourists. And then we were there.  The large fountain towering over us with ... no water.  What?  Isn't it a fountain.  Turns out the thing is being cleaned, so instead we got to see men giving it a bit of a water blast. Fun.  We did some googling and found out that it is the end of an aqueduct, the only one left functioning after the Barbarians destroyed the rest. (Barbarians!) It used to be in a slightly different place in the plaza but someo
Read more

It's big, it's hot and it leans ...

Image
Our only full day in Florence. We had a lot to fit in. The first thing was to try our luck at getting into the gallery where 'The David' is. The line was already massive so we paid a little extra and got into a guided tour.  We were glad. No big lines, no fussing over tickets, no audio guides. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and we learnt so much about the art and the artists. We also could go around the gallery once we were finished our tour. This piece was amazing. It was by Jean de Boulogne. It was actually the plaster cast, not the real thing. When artists created their works they created a plaster cast first then the actual statue. Usually, they get destroyed but Jean didn't because he liked it so much, he kept it for himself.  This is one of the prisoners. They were created by Michaelangelo (photographed below) and were supposed to be unfinished. They were stunning and we loved hearing about their background. m But the real hi
Read more