John found $300 roundtrip tickets to England and we booked them to celebrate my 30th birthday. We packed light to travel across the world.
The boys, going down the street to Grandma's, did not.
At the airport, ready to go!
It was a much shorter flight without children and we even slept a little. We had a walking tour of some places in London on our way to the hotel.
Buckingham Palace and a phone booth
Then Trafalgar Square
where we went through the National Gallery.
We checked into our hotel, then found the bus for our Harry Potter Studio Tour.
Even from the outside, we were impressed and excited.
The current exhibit was the Goblet of Fire, which I had just watched with the symphony.
Portraits and educational decrees
The mirror of erised
Snape's potion class
Harry's cupboard
Use of perspective in Hagrid's hut. I loved how hands-on things were. It wasn't just a museum, they had so many interactive displays.
The Hogwarts Express. The Forbidden Forest was dark, so I didn't take pictures, but it was impressive. I can't believe the amount of work that goes into the movie sets.
John's ready to go to school.
We stopped and had a quick dinner and tried a butterbeer ice cream before getting to the rest of the displays. The problem with tours is you're on their time schedule. It was just barely long enough for me.
An entire home outside. Unbelievable.
Of course, Ollivander's wand shop.
The Knight bus. The big props and behind the scenes parts were cool.
Hagrid's bike with John in the sidecar.
Trying to fly the Ford Anglia.
The Dursley's. Seeing things first hand and how they created the whole wizarding world was fun.
Diagon Alley. The set was identical to the ones in the parks.
I loved the sketches. The makeup and costumes are fun, but I love artwork.
The intricate little models of the sets were amazing.
Especially the to-scale model of the castle. It was breathtaking.
That was more Harry Potter pictures than I planned to share, but I couldn't pick favorites. I was not about to spend a whole night in London going to a movie tour, but after repeated recommendations we decided to try it and I'm so glad we did. Even though I'm more a fan of the books and have only watched the movies once or twice, I loved the tour. It was absolutely incredible.
Looking at your photos made me want to go back and see it all again. London is a great place to visit. Harry Potter makes it even greater. Glad all three of my kids have been able to experience it!
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