Last week I was (FINALLY) lucky to enough to head down to Leavesden to visit the Warner Bros Studio Tour with my mum, my godmother and her two sons (my brothers pretty much). This is something I've wanted to do for such a long time. I'm a massive Harry Potter fan: the reason I have waist length hair is because of Luna Lovegood, whenever I need good luck I mutter "felix felicis" under my breath, Hermione Granger was my sole motivation for working my arse off in my A Levels and GCSEs, Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas were my first EVER crushes and those books and films have been my constant companions since before I can remember. So as you can imagine, I was preeetty excited to visit the sets of the films.
The tour is set out in a route through the sets, so the first section is this huuuuge room full of every little detail you can imagine, from wigs and beard wigs (do those things have a name?) to the Mirror of Erised and the Gryffindor Common Room. You name it, it was in there. It was one of those moments where I just couldn't take everything in all at once. If you could design your own heaven, that room is what mine would look like.
*cue photo spam*
*Squeals*
Next up was a little outdoorsy section full of the stuff that would no way fit inside the room above. Out here was the Knight Bus, 4 Privet Drive, The Potter's House in Godric's Hollow, Tom Riddle's grave and the wonky bridge you see all the time in scenes in the film. Plus, you could buy butterbeer in this section which is always a plus becasuse I LOVE butterbeer and actually preferred the one here to the one in Florida!
If there hadn't have been so many people around I would've jumped and skipped around this entire section. It was like a big playground!
Next up was the creature/make-up department and Diagon Alley. For me, there were two parts of this I got really excited about. First was seeing a Thestral (That's what happens when you spend a good half of your life completely infatuated with Luna Lovegood and everything she ever did or said) and second was getting to walk down Diagon Alley, seeing shops such as Flourish and Blotts, Madam Malkins and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. I completely transported into my own daydreams in this part and I'm pretty sure I was lost to everyone around me for the duration of this section. It was an absolute dream.
Aaaaaaand breathe. Just looking at these photos is getting me all a fluster. This place is seriously magical. Walking around, you suddenly realise how much magic takes place behind the scenes of these films in order to make them as spectacular as they are. From things such as concept artwork all the way up to full scale models of the Hogwarts Castle, the pure scale of work that goes on is just phenomenal. The final section of the tour celebrated just that. The underrated geniuses that rarely get credit for their incredible talents.
I honestly cannot thank Warner Bros enough for giving fans the opportunity to visit the sets, it's just a unique and wonderful experience that I genuinely never will forget.
"The stories we love best do live in us forever, so whether you come back by page or by screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home." - JK Rowling
*cries forever*
I'll be back soon with a big Q&A post as I've been getting lots of requests for that. So if you have any questions about anything at all, email me or pop them in a comment!
All my love,
You can't imagine just how jealous I am! ;) It's good to see you had lots of fun, though. Will you be going back? And was it as good as you'd imagined?
ReplyDeleteIt was incredible! I hope to be able to go back, I'd love to :-) It was MILES better than I imagined!!! :-D xx
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