The Harry Potter version of London! And some!

 

Given the highlight of our trip was this little minx's birthday and her Harry Potter fantasies, we found ourselves on a Harry Potter walking tour of London to catch the sites and get our fill of the Potter madness! I wont be able to give you a lot of the details being I was just a spectator tagging along for the ride! I will leave you with lots of pictures and some trivia here and there!

First stop: Kings cross station! 

Kings cross station has an underground station and a national rail station with trains going all over UK. Additionally across the street is the St Pancras Station that is the International station, with trains that connect to rest of Europe! The movie actually features the St Pancras station. You can tell why. Looks so much better for sure!

St Pancras International

Kings cross station (just across the st)

Another detail. Kings cross station has no wall between platform 9 and 10. The 9 3/4 you see there is outside a shop near platform 9 and 10. Apparently JK Rowling had her stations mixed up when she wrote. She was thinking Euston Rd and wrote Kings cross! However they made do, Kings cross does have a wall near platform 4 and 5 (see below) where a lot of the shooting was done!

Kings cross platforms - this is what 9, 10 looked like as well

Wall near Platform 5 (better view below)

Platform 9 3/4 in the film

From Kings Cross, we took the tube to the Leicester Square station!

 From there we walked to Goodwin's court! We saw 2 inspirations for Diagon Alley here. One at Goodwins' court and from there we headed to a darker looking diagon alley at Cecil court! I have not watched a lot of Harry Potter, but even to me the resemblance was uncanny!

Goodwin Court

I dont think its related to HP, but might as well be!

Cecil Court

Entrance to Diagon Alley (as seen in Harry Potter and Half Blood prince), at Newport St

Here is one of the brat! In her new trendy leather Zara bikers jacket!
Outside a blue door on Diagon alley with a broom propped in front of it!

Our next stop, the Palace Theater which screens the Harry Potter and the cursed child play! We missed that here in the US. Need to go looking for that in the USA!

The Palace Theater

That rare picture of the 4 of us in one frame!

As I upload this picture, my conversations with Tootsie earlier this week plays back! She says “2 people read your blog, you and me! And you go to all this effort to find us blog names and keep our privacy! I say post a picture of me on your blog! About time!”  I figured she was right! And she had me at "I read your blog!" I would do anything for my reader in singular! 😜 Also if you think about it that’s less people on my blog than on my Facebook! So if I can post there, I most certainly can post it in this blog with its +1 readership count !!  (Although I swing back and forth on the wisdom of posting pictures on Facebook! But hey who am I kidding! Privacy is a thing of the past in this new world!) In any case, enjoy the indulgence!

Our next stop on the tour Leicester square with its theaters and sculptures of different characters! As is the case sometimes, I forgot to take pictures! I certainly am not a good travel blogger or tip provider! And it was too crowded anyway! Our favorites were Mary Poppins, the guy from Mary poppins, Mr Bean, and Paddington! They were promoting Thor so we couldn’t get close to Harry Potter! The pity! We did get a good sighting of Wonder Woman and Batman!

A different side of palace theater with the London traffic as we walked away! That big red bus!

Leicester Square with the star studded banners!

Leicester Square   

Wonder Woman

The flying birds of Leicester Square   

Just because!

Our next stop on the tour was Trafalgar square. There were no protests on this day that I could see! I have heard that this is the hot bed of rallies and protests! Tourists were milling around taking in all the splendor and appeal of the square!

    

Trafalgar Square with the giant ice cream that was fascinating

National Gallery on the north across the street from Trafalgar square

The lion was certainly fascinating! Kind of reminiscent of the lion in the Indian emblem!

On the other side of Trafalgar square is the South African Embassy! To the potter heads this was the inspiration for the outside of Gringott's bank! Although the insides was the Australian Embassy and not this!

 The great Scotland yard! In Harry Potter I believe this was the ministry of defense! I believe there was a red telephone booth that is not present on this street that was the entrance to the ministry in the movie! But after watching so many UK based movies and shows this was more about the great scotland yard and at least in my head I had stopped paying attention to the Harry Potter references! Sorry HP fans but here is where I mentally leave you! But I believe they break into the ministry in the Deathly Hallows movie! 

St James Palace! We missed the change of guard by a few minutes! Considering we altogether missed Buckingham palace in our list, this was a distant second!

Onwards on to the famous London Eye! We were very tempted but boy does it move slow! The Thames boat rides are also very tempting, but long lines to get on! They take you from here to Tower of London so would have been a wonderful sight seeing off the water!

Walk further along the river thames and you see the wonderful Big Ben. Turn and walk alongside het tube station and you view the amazing architecture of Westminster Abbey

 

As you can tell, the weather was absolutely fantastic. Warm and sunny but not scalding hot like here! It was just perfect and the British rain that we were prepared for eluded us nicely! Couldnt have asked for better. By this time the kids were done, so we abandoned the HP tour got a nice subway lunch! I love the american fast food restaurants everywhere else in the world! While Subway in London was just the same, Mc D had so many different options including Vegetarian options! I always love exploring these fast food chains outside the US. I wouldnt be caught at a Mc D within! The best by far is of course in India.

We skedaddled out of there taking the tube! The Westminster underground station (which unfortunately I didn't take pictures of) is another HP location. I believe the Lambeth bridge and 

Here is a lovely pic from https://www.visitlondon.com/traveller-information/place/284476-westminster-underground-station

And another from https://www.sceen-it.com/sceen/1546/Harry-Potter-and-the-Order-of-the-Phoenix/Westminster-Tube-Station of the scene where Harry Potter and Arthur Weasley take the tube!

As we headed back to the hotel, M was beginning to feel the fatigue and was complaining about a stuffy nose and sore throat. So I walked across the street to a Boots to get a covid test and some medication. As the lady at the counter patiently translated for me what a Paracetamol with Caffeine can do! While I asked her but what's the equivalent of NyQuil? (Being the American, I expect the world to know about all our medication!) But as I kept talking to the Pharmacist and looked at the Vitamin C chewies, I had a wage of nostalgia hit me! The Calpol, Crocin and the Succee (Vit C) from my childhood memories were remembered fondly! 

The rest as they say is history! I was so sure of this not being Covid! But I forget the new world we live in! M tested and tested positive! I looked at the 2 lines in disbelief! Hell no! This certainly was not the vacation I planned! But we have come far in the covid journey! There is no quarantine requirement, or travel restriction anymore! We were all vaccinated and boostered, so were likely to have mild flu like symptoms! And hey what's life if you don't have a few of these setbacks! Thank God for all our blessings!

I still wasn't ready to wind down yet! And the next day we would leave to Scotland! So I decided to make the most of my evening and equipped with my Oyster card took off to explore Tower of London! M donned a mask, claimed a bed and took a nap! The kids, took to their devices each claiming the other bed and couch / sofa bed in the room - Our version of quarantine!

I took the tube to Monument, thinking I needed to go to London bridge! See the Monument there that is a reminder of the great fire of 1666. The stone column I have heard is worth a climb (up its 311 steps) to take in some sweeping views of the city! But I was a woman with a mission, so off I went to London bridge! 

Huh? That's the London bridge? Remember the london bridge fell down? Not sure if it was the reference to the timber bridge that was replaced by an ineffective Stone arch bridge in 1176 that was then replaced by a series of other London bridges! Fear ye not, do a 360. turn and there she is inn all her glory the Neo Gothic Tower bridge!

The tower bridge

The Tower castle

The walk from London bridge to the tower bridge! A lovely walk lined with food stalls!

The London city line as viewed from the other side of Thames!

Entrance to the Tower castle which houses the crown jewels! Most importantly the Kohinoor

The side profile of the castle! The fortress of London!

That my friends is my long winded tale of our London expedition! I had every intention of going to the Buckingham palace and the Pall Mall the next morning and keeping my appointment with the Queen! (Poor Joke I know)! But I had to spend the morning canceling our rental car, and accomodations around Scotland! It was time to face reality and re-configure our trip to stay put in Edinburgh! Not to mention my Bank's alerting system just went crazy with all my change of plans! In the next 36 hrs my credit card would get locked 4 times and it would take me a few chats and calls to the Bank to set things right, not to mention cancelations, re-bookings as a result! Whoever said going with the flow was fun! But I guess I ought to be thankful to my bank for looking out for me!