Harry Potter in London: Muggles Tour of the City

Since this was a trip designated to all things Harry Potter in London that we could squeeze into three days, we decided to see London from the eyes of Witches and Wizards, and went on a Muggles tour of London.  We took off our wizard robes and donned on our muggles clothes, with the exceptions of the house scarves that the girls decided to covertly wear.  We met our tour guide,  Lukas Lestrange for a tour of London.

Our first stop was at the Leaky Cauldron in the Borough Market. This exact store was what was turned into the Leaky Cauldron in the movie.  The top left window in the picture below was the window used to take the shot taken of Harry looking out the window in the fourth book.  It was fascinating to learn that the doorway was made of styrofoam.  

I think one of my most favorite facts that I learned about the Borough Market was that the film makers made the Knight Bus off site and then brought the bus to the market.  However, someone must have been fired that day because it was too tall to fit under the bridge we were standing under.  The film makers only had one night to film this part of the movie, so on the spot the bus was re-done while the cast had to sit and wait, which is why there was a shot taken out of the left window.

We continued to walk through Borough Market and walked past the fish & chips restaurant, The Anchor.  This actually wasn't Harry Potter related, but it was super cool to learn that it is the oldest pub in Britain.  William Shakespeare even wrote some of his famous writings in this exact pub.

We walked past some ruins in London and Lukas took a second to explain that this is how the wizards hide in plain site.  A normal muggle would just walk past this and just simply ignore the building as an old run down rotting ruin, when in fact it is enchanted and in truth is a wizard shop or home.  I loved how Lukas was always in character.  It made the tour simply delightful.  He also kept the kids attention the entire time.

We stopped at The Golden Hinde, which is a copy of the first English vessel to circumnavigate the globe. This ship was the inspiration for the Durmstrang Ship that was created for the fourth movie.

We had a fun stop at the Millennium Bridge with another super great story. This is the bridge that was used in the sixth Harry Potter movie.  The bridge in the book was a fictional bridge according to JK Rowling, so she said they could use whatever bridge they wanted in London.  This particular bridge was actually made super bad and it swayed and had massive issues.  The designer of the bridge was so prideful that he said it wasn't the bridge but the way the people walked on it.  As a joke and a mockery to this situation, the Millennium Bridge was used in the movie and notice the next time you watch how they make it sway.  I so loved this.

While at the Millinium Bridge, Lukas pointed out that St. Paul's Cathedral, which is the big church at the end of the bridge is where the spiral staircase is located that was used for the staircase to Professor Trelawney's Divination classroom.  The tour didn't have time to go to the church, so we ended up going to it on our own.  We had plans to go in the church, but it was going to cost about $80 for our family, so we decided just seeing the church was good enough.

And this is what we had to say about it costing $80 to enter a church... What?!?

As we made our way back to Borough Market and to the tube station, we walked down Clink Street and passed through the tunnel by The Clink, we stopped to learn that this location inspired the Prison of Azkaban. The unsavory people that walk this street, the dark shadows that fall over the tunnel and the prison itself all have the feeling of Azkaban.  The location wasn't used for the filming, but parts of it was used as inspiration in the actual set. This made us laugh, because the hotel we were staying at was right at the end of the tunnel, so we joked that we would see a dementor out of our window one night.

We got on the tube and stayed together in our tour group and took the tube to Westminster.  We had our Oyster cards ready and made it to Westminster without a hiccup.  As we were walking out of Westminster, we passed down the same escalator that Harry and Mr. Weasley went down to get the the Ministry of Magic in the Order of the Phoenix movie. It's like Big Sis is right in the movie.

As we were exiting, Lukas even showed us the exact entrance/exit that was shown in the movie when Mr. Weasley couldn't get the arms to open.  I asked if any kids wanted to walk through and get a picture and Big Sis willingly volunteered.  She laughed the entire time she walked through.  This is the epitome of a Potterhead.

Our next stop was the Ministry of Magic.  Lukas showed us the very spot where Harry, Ron and Hermione hid before they went into the Ministry of Magic under polyjuice potion in the seventh movie.  We were told the doorway where Kevin is standing was transformed using, yet again, styrofoam.  I guess the design was so poorly made that Harry didn't dare move or else the entire thing would fall on him, that is why he doesn't move much in this part of the movie.  We then looked down the street where the telephone booth was made and where the Ministry of Magic would have been.

Our last stop was probably my favorite, Knockturn Alley.  This is actually Goodwin's Court in London and it had the most magical feeling than any spot we went today.  The story here is that this is the place where 11 publishers were located that turned down JK Rowling when she was trying to get her manuscript published.  She used Knockturn Alley as a 'stick it to you' to those chum publishers.  I could have spent all day here, it had darkly painted buildings and amazing real street lanterns that just added so much magic to this little easy to miss alley.  There were even a few window that had broom sticks and stuffed owls peeking out. The last bit of information Lukas shared with us was that the alley was too small to do the filming, but JK Rowling insisted on using it, so they took pictures of the entire thing and made an exact replica in the studio so they could still use the location for filming.  Even the skylight window at the top of Borgin and Burkes is in this alley.

By this point, poor little Monster had fallen asleep and the kids were exhausted and hungry.  We all loved our day and loved walking through London as wizards dressed as muggles.  It was great seeing film locations and inspirations for the book and the movies.  I highly recommend Muggles Tour London.  It was a day of magic making memories.