A Harry Potter walking tour [+Bucket List]

Happy Travel Tuesday!
I had a lot of fun in our recent trip to London, the walking tour we took taught us so much, I really do recommend taking one on your first time visit to any city! But that wasn't the only one we took. We I didn't book tickets to the WB Harry Potter studios so we missed out on that big time. Instead, I booked us a Harry Potter themed tour with London Walks. Want to know what that entails? Read on!

But first, since today is the last tuesday of the month and I'm, taking part in the Travel Tuesday Link up, I figured I'd include a little bit of today's theme in this post...

WHAT'S IN YOUR BUCKET LIST?

This got me thinking, and while we have visited most of the cities that are in our European bucket list. We still have quite a few to go, I’m listing the ones that were in our original list, you can also find my European Travel Bucket List in its own post. I wish to visit these cities at some point in the (near) future.

While here:
- Vienna, Austria
- Budapest, Hungary
- Neuschwanstein Castle
- Bavaria
- Croatia
- Istanbul, Turkey

& in the USA:
- Las Vegas (because, why not?)
- New york (I'd like to visit all the HIMYM spots!)
- Detroit (Bro in law just moved there, we need to go visit!)
- Seattle (Idk if any of Gray's Anatomy was actually shot here, but I'd like to visit what I can that is referenced in the show)

HARRY POTTER WALKING TOUR.

The tour we took is offered by LONDON WALKS every Sunday afternoon, you can book it in advance or at the meet up location, outside exit 3 of the Bank tube station starting at 14:00. It took us to many spots were bits of the Harry Potter movies were shot in London.

"This walk “Potters” through the mysterious old City of London on a Sunday afternoon. We'll cross the river by way of London Bridge – natch! We scope out film locations where Hagrid and Harry make their way to Diagon Alley in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. We see where Harry, Mad-Eye Moody, Nymphadora Tonks and their friends fly in The Order of the Phoenix. We see the locations used for the Leaky Cauldron and the Third Hand Book Emporium in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. And more. “

The first thing we saw was a bank building, this was an imposing snow-white multistoried marble building, which was not the actual gringotts, but the description fits it perfectly.

We then were on our way to Leadenhall but our guide made a stop by the first coffee house in the old city of London. This was worth mentioning since J.K. spent most of her time writing in coffee houses. In Edinburgh for sure, we stopped during the most famous one during our free walking tour of Edinburgh.

Leadenhall market was used in the movie as Diagon Alley, there is two scenes were Harry & Hagrid walk through it, but they were actually filmed in two different spots.

This is what you see behind Hagrid in the first movie when he responds to harry’s question with “only if yer know where to look” as always, there has to be scaffolding somewhere. 

We kept walking and our next stop was the place that was used as the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. Notice the color difference, that is because back then this place was not being used so they painted it black for the movie. 

 

We then walked towards the London bridge, not before passing by the monument to the great fire of london, which if you see it closely you will notice a goblet at the very top. I guess you could say it resembles the goblet of fire!

Then we found the pub which was transformed into the Third Hand Book Emporium (in HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban). the top windows are the ones from the Leaky Cauldron in the movie.
We kept walking and found the millennium bridge.

The tour ended at Center Lane gardens, in front of St. Pauls Cathedral,which has a beautiful staircase inside. If you go inside you will be sure to recognize it, because they are used in the movie as the Divination stairwell.

to wrap up the tour our guide called all the kids to the front and gave them each a souvenir wand, they didn't know that's what it was so they were quite excited when they flew open!

I really really loveed this tour, and hope to make it back to London, I definitely want to take their other Harry Potter tour (offered on saturdays) and visit the WB HP Studios.

If this is your first time here, Willkommen!
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