From the movie
From the tour
After that, we went to the two different locations used as the outside of the Leaky Cauldron. They used one location for the first movie and then another location for the rest. We went to Kings Cross again and stopped at the fake Platform 9 3/4 as well as the location that was used in the movie. I had actually walked by the one they used in the movie quite a few times not knowing what it was. The interesting thing about Platform 9 3/4 is that at Kings Cross, there is actually no barrier between platforms 9 and 10. JK Rowling meant to use the train station Euston; however, that station doesn't have a barrier between platforms 9 and 10 either.
Clip from Sorcerers Stone showing Platform 9 3/4
We then made our way up to Oxford, where parts of Hogwarts castle sets were based off of. Oxford is an interesting campus as the university buildings are mixed in with the city. Oxford is made up of many smaller colleges, such as Christ Church. If you attended Oxford, you would consider yourself a student of your specific college, not the university as a whole. The Great Hall in Hogwarts is based off of three different great halls in three different colleges. Unfortunately, we were only able to see one because the other two were closed. We saw the one inside of Christ Church, which was really cool. They have portraits all over the room of different alumni of the school and such. They also have stained glass windows all over the place. If you look close enough at the ones towards the front, you can see figures from Alice in Wonderland in some of the corners.
Alice in Wonderland!
We also went to a room in one of the other colleges that was used as the infirmary in The Sorcerers Stone. Lastly, we went to a courtyard at one school that can easily be recognized from Goblet of Fire. It is the location where Mad Eye Moody turns Mayfoy into a ferret as well as when Harry tells Cedric about the dragons, etc. Just standing in the courtyard, you could tell it was from the movies. It was so cool!
We also were given an our to explore the city a bit. Ryan showed us the pub where the Inklings, a group of authors that included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, met every week for years. We were actually able to have lunch in the corner where they sat week after week. They had pictures and placards up around the table and people were coming up the whole meal to take photos. CS Lewis is one of my very favorite authors, so it was amazing to see. We were going to go inside the free museum in Oxford that has a lot of Egyptian artifacts, but its closed on Mondays. We did look through the gift shop, but that was it.
Epic picture outside of the museum
Ryan then drove us the hour and a half back to London and dropped us off at our hotel. We were talking to him on the drive home and Jen mentioned that she likes this musician Marcus Foster and that she goes to his gigs a lot. Ironically, Ryan is a musician and just played with Marcus Foster the week before. How crazy is that?! So now Jen is going to one of Ryan's gigs at the end of the month. haha Anyways, after we got back to the hotel, we just chilled and tried to keep cool. And I got McDonalds from the train station.
The end!
