A few hours after our arrival in England we took a stroll downtown. This was when it hit me that we were really in London--double decker buses and bobbies.
We arrived at the tail end of the Diamond Jubilee celebration for Queen Elizabeth. This is in Hyde park where they had big screens set up so people could watch the queen and her family step out onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace and wave. (The Palace grounds were already full by the time we got there). It was rainy and cool, but it was a fun experience watching the people "hip hip hooray" their queen and wave flags. We also got a good view of the jet fly by. The coolest thing for me was seeing the guards all raise their tall hats in unison on "Hooray."
Here we are at dinner the first day. A little damp, very jet lagged, but happy to be there. By the way, we ate at a Mexican restaurant and had an interesting British interpretation of Mexican food.
Day Two began with a tour of Westminster Abbey, which was spectactular, and where we caught of glimpse of Big Ben's clock
. Then we went to the Royal Mews where they house the Royal cars and coaches. Here's the golden coach that they use for very special occasions.
After that we took a train to a Suburb north of London to the studio where the Harry Potter films were made. They've turned the studio into a tour and preserved a lot of the original props and sets used in the filming. I took about a hundred pictures here. But I'll just post a few.
The Great Hall. It had no magical ceiling like you see in the movies. It was just flat and the high vaults and magical stuff were added later.
Ron's Bed in the Gryffindor boy's dorm.
Gryffindor Common Room
The Knight Bus was made by taking a double decker bus and welding another half bus on top. They closed down streets in London for eight nights so they could drive it around and film it. It was too tall for most of the bridges so they had to map out a route that would work.
The bridge at Hogwarts.
This was the last thing on the tour and the most amazing--a 1/24 size miniature of Hogwarts. The whole castle and grounds and eveything. They used it for all their shots and flyovers of the castle. For me this made the trip to London. I love miniature things to begin with and this was so painstakingly detailed, it was incredible. We could have gone home after day two and I would still have been happy.
