It was an early start to the day by waking up at 5:30 in the morning and surprisingly bright eyed and bushy tailed - I suspect this will lessen as time passes. After a coffee and a delicious breakfast of eggs and toast we put on all our layers to deal with the freezing London weather and had our oyster cards in easy reach and off we go! Wendy's friend Courtenay was also heading into London so she was our tour guide to firstly walk to the underground station and then which train to catch. This was most helpful as I had only walked this way in afternoon yesterday as I was a little out of it by this time. As our map told us to we got off at Leicester Square station and headed out onto the streets of London. Sarah wanted to exchange some money so we did that first and then spied a French patisserie and decided to have morning tea. As we dined on delicious fruit scones and cappuccinos (you can't get flat whites in London much to my horror) we read through the "Harry Potter" self guided tour notes to begin to orientate our way along the tour.
Early on we discovered most of the tour required a lot of "imagination" and backtracking which made it tiring but also quite hilarious!
After exiting Leicester Square we found ourselves to be on Charing Cross Rd and as Sarah had just a book about the 2nd hand bookshop at 84 we headed up the road the check out this monumental site. Much to our disappointment the site is now a Pizza Hut although there are still approx 3 2nd bookshops in the area it was still not the same.
Now on to the tour...
First stop was Hardy's Original Sweet Shop which is just like Honeydukes and after wandering around, amazed by all the varieties of sweets available Sarah asked the shopkeeper for the special Harry Potter bag and bought one. After this photo opportunity outside Sarah drifted towards the shop Sass & Belle it was pretty hard to drag her away and also gave us an insight on how warm shops were and whether you deal with it or take your jacket off depending on length of stay.
Next was Goodwin's Court with its glorious Georgian facades and gas lamps that line the court apparantly have a magical aura but not so much at 10:30 in the morning. Cecil Court was with a curious mix of bookshops and antique shops it is widely believed to be where they based Diagon Alley on. There is even a shop called The Witch Ball and you can buy special limited edition Harry Potter character bank notes from the coin shop. 2 sets were purchased of the teachers and students - we proposed a deal of keeping each one for 6 months of the year each much to the amusement of the shop dude. As we were exiting the shop we came across a paid tour of Harry Potter and were glad we had got in first at the coin & lolly shop and commented to ourselves that we were glad we were guiding ourselves as it seemed much more fun!
We came across the Statue of Eros on Shaftesbury Ave and as we stood with our backs to the statue (not the only time during the tour we would feel slightly foolish following the instructions to the letter) we saw the street where H, R and H apparated after Bill & Fleur's wedding to in Deathly Hallows Part 1. After this they ran around some columns (we walked) and then walked through an aracde where they talked about missing Harry's birthday but reminisced on how they were happy to be alive after defeating some Death eaters.
Past The Odeon where the movies premiered and onto Great Scotland Place where on the corner was the entry to the Ministry of Magic. It was used twice one when they used the polyjuice potion and when Mr Weasley & Harry entered the Ministry via the visitor's entrance. Next was the phone boxes to descend into the ministry - much hilarity in taking these photos and it was quite difficult physically to crouch in the booth.
As we walked down Parliament St and past Westminister, Big Ben and towards the Houses of Parliment we came across some protesters. As we were contemplating the cause we finally got close enough to read their placards and they were picketing to Save Libraries! We couldn't have planned a better protest and I considered yelling out dewey numbers in support!
As we walked along the riverside we came across the church of St Mary-at Lambeth which houses the Museum of Garden History. All the food is grown on the grounds and used in the cafe. It was so delicious and healthy tasting and perfect for lunch. Also William Bligh is buried here. Then we walked across the Lambeth Bridge where the Knight bus squeezes between the 2 cars which proved to be a hilarious photo opportunity. Then we came across the Buxton Memorial fountain which was built to commemorate the abolition of slavery. The writer of the tour suggests that the lions could be dementors but we were not so sure.
This was the end of Part 1 - we were pretty tired at the end but were impressed by how many London attractions we saw on the way and how fun it was. An early night will fix everything I'm sure. Stay tuned for Part 2...
