I wanted to write a post about various places in the UK that I have visited in the last month pertaining to Harry Potter (yes, there are a surprising number of “real life” places that have to do with the series). For those of us that sincerely wish the books were real, here are my personal favorite places to pretend…. The locations vary from London to Oxford to Edinburgh.
1. The forbidden forest – the forbidden forest was shot somewhere on our bus tour to Oxford. I’m not sure of the name of the town just that our tour guide said that the scenes from the movie were filmed there as we drove by. Obviously I took a picture.
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| From Harry Potter |
2. Elephant House Cafe in Edinburgh – Kathleen and I had such a good time at this little cafe a few blocks from the flat we rented on our recent trip to Edinburgh. I had been wanting to visit for awhile, and not only was it fun to see where JK Rowling penned most of the Potter novels, but it was also a delicious place for lunch, tea and millionaire shortbread 🙂
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| From Harry Potter |
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| From Harry Potter |
One of my favorite parts of the cafe was the magnificent view of the castle. It is definitely not hard to guess where Rowling got her inspiration for Hogwarts.
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| From Harry Potter |
3. Platforms 9 3/4 at Kings Cross in London. I finally saw this for the first time on my way back from Edinburgh. I didn’t realize that the jolly good chaps at the train station had a good enough sense of humor to actually install this into Kings Cross Station but there it was. Most hilarious part (which was sadly not captured in my blurry picture) is that there is a trolley half stuck into the brick wall like someone was passing through and got stuck.
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| From Harry Potter |
4. The lightening shaped builders mark in Oxford. One of my favorite stories from our bus trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Oxford (which I highly recommend as a day trip from London!). Apparently Rowling wrote the entire first book without knowing what shape of scar she would give Harry. She knew he would have a scar from his encounter with Voldemort, just not what shape it would be. One day, while in Oxford, she saw the below carved into one of the streets. It is actually just an old builders mark but now it has become so much more.
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| From Harry Potter |
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