Have you ever wondered how does it feel to be immersed in the wizarding world? Anyone who is into the Harry Potter saga - books or movies, there's no difference - certainly has. Needless to say that I, as a proud Gryffindor, have too. So, you all can imagine how excited I was when I discovered that I could actually have a chance to be part of that world for a day.
Well, that's exactly what I experienced at the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Studios in Watford - which is a small city near London, easily reachable by train. I must say, it is not the cheapest place of interest related to the Harry Potter saga, but it is without a doubt worth the cost of the ticket.
Once we - me and my family - got to the Watford train station there was a red double-deck bus waiting for visitors who wanted to reach the Studios. Inside the bus we found a few tv screens. They provided us with all the information about the tour at the Studios. The trip on the bus lasted more or less half an hour - of course to me it seemed way longer because I couldn't wait to get there.
The bus stopped in front of a giant yellow-ish building with a huge black writing on top: The making of Harry Potter, WARNER BROS. STUDIO TOUR. That's the moment I realised it was really happening. Personally I have been waiting for a chance like this since I was a little kid, so it really was a big deal to me.
The moment we went in we found ourselves in a hallway. Thank goodness we were a bit early, in fact we had to queue for more than half an hour before we could start the tour.
Eventually an employee called us saying we could start. We and other 25/30 people were brought into a dark room where we could see literally nothing. After a few seconds several screens lighted up all around us and J.K. Rowling started talking to us through the tv. She explained what the tour was all about, she suggested us where to look in order to discover the most curious details. I won't ever forget a sentence that she said. She told us to look at the person next to us and think that we were there for the same reason, that we had something in common so we might as well not be shy and enjoy the tour as a big family. That sentence took away every bit of discomfort I had.
After she finished talking, the screen went off and a big blue-ish light lighted up a door. I immediately recognised it. The entrance to the Great Hall. I was thrilled!
The doors opened and we went inside, of course, the Great Hall. There were 5 tables, furnished with all kinds of (fake) food, just like in the movies. The room was slightly smaller than I had expected, but it was still quite big. The curios thing is, the room had no ceiling. I mean, there was a ceiling, but it was the black ceiling of the Studios, it was not part of the Great Hall. I guess that's probably how they made up the changing ceiling in the movies, with green screen or something similar.
My attention was captured by the other side of the room, where the mannequins of all the professors stood before the table. They were clothed as the characters too. There was the headmaster Dumbledore, professor McGonagall, professor Sprite, professor Snape, professor Moody, professor Vitious and many more. But there's one thing I noticed even more. The hourglass of each Hogwarts' house.
Here they are, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Of course Gryffindor was winning!
We left the Great Hall and we entered an enormous room. There were all the "small sets" they used to shoot the insides of Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic. For example, there was the Gryffindor common room, the boys' dormitory, the Magic is Might statue, a piece of the moving stairs, the gate before Hogwarts and many others! The one I loved the most is Dumbledore's office. There was the Pensieve, the Triwizard cup, Fanny, everything. Even the entrance had the same gargoyle.
I tried saying "sherbet lemon" in front of this but it refused to move. Guess that only happened because I had left my wand at home!
As we moved forward, we came by the Quidditch area. The tower of each House stood out as they were very tall and all of them had their House banners. There was a whole showcase where you could admire the most important broomsticks such as Nimbus2000, Firebolt and others. There were some mannequins too, dressed with the Quidditch clothes the cast actually used while filming the Quidditch scenes. The most striking object, at least for me, was the trunk where the balls stood. It was just like the one in the movie! Here's a picture.
As you can see, the Quaffle and the Bludgers look like they're real. I didn't have the chance to check whether the Golden Snitch was actually inside the trunk or not, but I like to think that it was there.
After that, we crossed the Deatheaters & dark magic area. The first thing we saw was a cupboard with all the Deatheaters' masks. It was pretty big and I have to admit, a bit scary. Right next to it there was a showcase where all the Horcruxes were exposed. Of course Nagini and Harry Potter were not exposed like the others, they had been replaced by pictures.
Do you remember the scene at the beginning of "the Deathly Hallows part 1" set in the Malfoy Manner where all the Deatheaters were sitting around a table? Well, they built up the same exact scene with mannequins. It's quite impressive, because you feel like you were there when it happened!
Have a look at it. It didn't look static, even though the mannequins didn't move at all. I could feel the suspense given by the fact that I knew what was going to happen, I knew that Nagini was going to kill and probably eat the professor who was floating over the table. I could also feel the Deatheaters turning their heads in order to avoid seeing the massacre that was going to take place. There was nothing I could do to stop it, but it gave me the same horrific feeling I had while I was watching this scene in the cinema. As if I were part of it.
Later on we came across a small window where all the wands were shown. I found it extremely fascinating as every wand had a label next to it stating whose wand it was. My favourite ones are Sirius Black's, Bellatrix Lestrange's, Lucius Malfoy's and the Elder wand. Of course I couldn't resist taking a picture, but I'm not inserting it in the text because it is super blurry. You can find it below the text anyway.
We got out of the giant room and we found ourselves outside. There was a stand which was selling sweets and Butterbeer. Yes, that Butterbeer. Obviously we all tasted it. Its colour was yellow-ish just like a normal beer, and it had a white beer foam too. I don't really have a word to describe what it tasted like, even though i remember it very vividly, but the closest flavour I can think of is vanilla.
See? It looks just like a beer!
At that point we had been standing and walking non-stop for more or less three hours, so we decided to stop for a few minutes and sit. While we were sitting at a table, we started noticing all the details around us. The whole outside space was surrounded by giant chess pieces. Just like the ones on the giant chessboard that Ron, Harry and Hermione had to defeat in order to have a chance to find the Philosopher's stone.
There was also a copy of the house in Privet Drive in which Harry had lived with the Dursley family for seventeen years. It was just the outside, but it looked exactly as nice as it did in the movies.
Just a few steps away from that, there was a blue double-decker bus. It was not a common blue double-decker bus though, it was the Knight Bus. We could not hop on it, and since it was only 6 p.m. there were no beds inside.
A few steps more and we found the bridge that linked Hogwarts with the surrounding grounds. The one that we saw many times in the movies. For example when Remus talks with Harry about his parents, or when Hermione and Harry talk about Viktor Krum and the Triwizard tournament. But the most famous scene shot on that bridge is probably the one where Neville Longbottom is chased by some Deatheaters until it gets blown up by Seamus Finnigan, in "the Deathly Hallows part 2".
Then we went inside another building, the Department of Magical Creatures. That was the moment I understood that not all the effects and the weird creatures we saw in the movies were entirely made up. In fact, many of the magical creatures were, at least in part, created manually. It was kind of creepy to see the bodies of Ron, Hermione, Cho and Fleur's sister. They were used to shoot the scene under the lake in "the Goblet of fire". The body of Hagrid was quite scary, too, but only because he was way taller than us. Two were the bodies that shocked me a little: Dumbledore's and Fred's. They were used to shoot their death, I presume, so it reminded me of those moments. There was the entire body of Dobby in a showcase. He had his eyes closed, as if it was sleeping. After Dobby we came by the other magical creatures.
This here is the Basilisk's head. There were many many more creatures, and of course I took loads of pictures but unfortunately I can't post them all. For example, there were also werewolves, a Dementor, a Thestral, Buckbeak, Aragog, and Grop's head.
Right after this department we entered a hallway, full of miniatures. There was a showcase in which an extremely tiny copy of the Whomping Willow was contained. It was all white and it seemed like it could brake any moment. There was also the miniature of the whole Hogwarts's grounds, including the Quidditch field, the castle, the lake, the bridge and everything else. There were many many other miniatures, all white, with a small caption at their side. To be honest, I was not particularly fascinated by this hallway but I think that's down to personal taste. As a matter of fact, my dad and my sister loved it.
On to the next part of the tour, we passed through a corridor which led us to a platform. More specifically, platform 9 and 3/4. It felt just like being in King's Cross station, waiting for the Hogwarts Express to depart. In fact, the red train was right there in front of us!
The outside was bright red and it was so polished that it looked like it was shining. Since we were a group of several people, we had to queue in order to get on. I remember that I had a million questions coming to my mind, but above all I was really excited. As the queue went on, our turn came and we hopped on. Once inside, I realised that was the exact place where they had shot the movie scenes. Every detail was just as I recalled. One thing I really appreciated was the fact that every coach was filled with objects and details in chronological order. For instance, in the first one there was a Chocolate frog on the window and a Dumbledore picture card on the seats. To bring another example, a few coaches forward the window-door had the writing R+L on it, just like that time in "the Half-blood prince" when Lavanda Brown wrote it. The last coach was for visitors to try. There was a screen showing scenes of the movies that were filmed on that particular train. Since me and my father are the ones who're into the saga most in my family, we took pictures sitting there. I would have never got off but eventually, I had to. When we finally did get off of the train, we found the Honeydukes Express and the Honeydukes sweetshop. Of course I went near to it and exclaimed "anything from the trolley dear?" like the trolley lady did in the movies. The trolley was full of sweets we could actually buy, in fact there were so many sweets that I didn't know what to pick. The shop had not only sweets but all kind of gadgets related to the saga, including wands. I ended up buying a Chocolate frog and the Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.
After that, we entered Diagon Alley. I'm not sure whether they actually filmed the movie scenes there or not. The most important and famous shops were there though. There was the Gringott, all white and massive. Then Ollivander's, where the insides were darkened - according to the story, it had been destroyed entirely. But the part I'll never forget about Diagon Alley is the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
Here it is from afar. The statue of Fred was moving the arm - with which he was holding a hat - up and down, as if he was saluting us. We couldn't go in, but from the outside it looked like the insides were bright and colourful. I remember that in a showcase there was an oddly shaped girl puking sweets in a basket. That was the dispenser of the Puking Pastilles which, according to the story, were perfect to use if you wanted to skip class. On the other side of Diagon Alley there was the street where all the Dark Wizards always went. That's where we found Borgin & Burke, the dark artifices shop where Draco first saw the Vanishing Cabinets.
Now the part I loved the most: the last one. At this point I thought I had seen everything that could be seen about the Harry Potter saga, but I was definitely wrong. We went through a small dark corridor and then we opened a big black door. When i raised my eyes I saw something I'd never thought I'd see. In front of me, in a tremendously giant room, there was Hogwarts. Not big enough for a human to fit in, but still huge. I'll post a picture so that you can understand what I'm talking about.
As we went around it, I was speechless. It was all perfect. I was so emotionally overwhelmed that I started crying. After all, this saga has been part of my life since when I was only four. It has walked beside me for many years, through good and bad times, and it has taught me a lot. I stood there contemplating it for almost half an hour. At that point the tour was over. I believe I can affirm, without a doubt, that I'll remember that day for a long, long time. It has been one of the best experiences of my entire life.
So, would I recommend it? Absolutely yes. Would I do it again? Yes! They change some things from time to time, for example they've opened a new area - the Forbidden Forest - and they're going to open another one soon for the Christmas season. So I'm looking forward to going there again!
