Harry Potter activities in London: "The one who must not be left behind"

London might be the best place for Harry Potter fans: visiting tours, movie studios, restaurants, architectures and more. what are they, where are they, how much do they cost? Harry Potter is one of the famous stories that a lot of people love, children, teenagers and adults. During the years of filming this adaptation, the fantastic wizarding world of Hogwarts has turned into real life activities and places of worship to visit in London.

Activities and tour

At the end of the last movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2, the Warner Bros Team decided to make an exhibition of sets, costumes and shooting secrets, to keep the world of Harry Potter alive.  In 2012, many of the actors from the film went to the opening studio, located in Leavesden, Watford, in the southwest of Hertfordshire. They even participated to video montages for the activities proposed by the Harry Potter tour.

The Warner Bros studio also offers attractions during the tour, where the visitor can discover real sets, a few special effects and drink the real butterbeer recipes. According to Secret London, Since the Making of Harry Potter has opened, around 2 million people came every year. During the Halloween time, Warner Bros studio proposes an adapted decoration called “The Dark Art feature”, this year these decorations will remain until November 7th, tickets are around £50.

Tour For Muggles, is another way of visiting and discovering the Harry Potter world. A tour around London with a guide, which proposes to see real architecture use in the footage and secret stories about the main characters, Harry, Ron and Hermione and as well as other small interactive games. This visit lasts 2 hours, and is done fully on foot. The booking is on the web site, one ticket costs £16 for an adult and £14 for a child. According to Prima web media, Tour for Muggles is  number one on the list “Top 10 experiences to have on a day out in the UK”.

“The free Harry Potter tour”, is also a tour in the city of London around the shooting of the Harry Potter movies but it is completely free. This visit also allows you to learn more about the author of this saga: J.K. Rowling. On the Website Strawberry Tours, people can book a time slot and there are daily visits.

“A Magical Tour”, is a free self-guide walk in London, people can download the tour directly on the website. This walk, like the others, is about places where the movies have been shot but also architecture that appears in the film and shop that may not be easy to find without knowing about them.

Around the Harry Potter world:

The Potion Room Tea at Cutter and Squidge, is a wizard afternoon Tea in Soho on Brewer Street. A place to make potions in an underground room wearing wizard robes, a total immersion session in the world of potions and wizards. The reservation is online on the website of Cutter and Squidge, there are time slots and it cost around £50 per person.

There are places that are easy to find, places that appear in the movies without even recognizing them, such is the case with the Millennium Bridge at the Thames Embankment. This bridge pops-up at the beginning in the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (6), when the death eaters attack the Muggles world, Voldemort’s supporters destroy this bridge. Of course, that part remains special effects and the bridge is still there, people can go on it to take some pictures and cross the Thames to the Southwark district.

The Hight Commission of Australia, it is harder to recognize this one, but the architecture of the Australia House was an inspiration for the Gringotts Wizarding Bank. The Australia House is at Strand Street not far from Covent Garden, where a different scenes was also shot. In Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry was staying in a wizard hotel at the beginning, a scene that was shot in a building above the Convent Garden market.

In 2016, the play “Harry Potter and the cursed child” was released as a book, written by J.K. Rowling, and was adapted to the theatre by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne. Since then, the play can be seen at the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. Reservations are mainly made online on the website; it is preferable to book well in advance because the show is often sold out the day before the performance. The prices change depending on the day of the week and the seat in the room, but they vary between £50 and £130.

The world of Harry Potter is everywhere in the city, there are a lot of shops of the Wizard world of Hogwarts, the easiest one that can be found is at King Cross’s station, there is even; a small decoration outside the store, to take a picture with and keep a good souvenir of London, the city for Harry Potter fans.