I swear this should be the last HP-related post. Unless JK spent time in Malta or Crete which is next on my agenda. Perhaps the Minotaur inspired a story (oh wait that was Hunger Games).

Anyway Luca and I went to Oxford and on a “free” Harry Potter tour in London. We also took a free tour in Oxford. And after Luca left I did a walking tour of London which covered the Westminster area, mostly monuments and history.

There was quite a bit of HP and now I’m hearing conflicting stories. As expected. Hey I heard different facts for creating the best scotch whiskies and ports in my various tours. Tour guides just aren’t in synch.

First I’ll start with Oxford. It’s an easy 1-plus hour train ride from London which apparently wasn’t an idea embraced by the Oxfordians. They didn’t like the thought of polluting the academic atmosphere with city folks or letting the students take distracting trips away. Obviously they lost.

Considering it was a Saturday between Christmas and New Years, I was surprised at how crowded everything was, from the trains and tours to the pubs and attractions. We had to wait in lines. (London was also pretty crowded—except Christmas day— I was told Christmas week is high season here. I think the Londoners leave but tourists descend.)

Oxford is a city of spires. It’s pretty but Luca and general consensus maintain that Cambridge is prettier. I guess I’ll find out later. The schools have a big rivalry as mentioned repeatedly by the guide.

Oxford’s main atttaction is the university; the collleges are spread out across the city and if you didn’t know, each sort of functions as its own distinct body. Dining halls, dorms, and professors/classes are all held within a single college’s grounds though they share university academic standards. I think even admissions are by college. this is the prestigious All Souls college — which grants 1-2 graduate fellowships each year — photos taken through the bars of the gates!

Also there are cute old pubs (we ate and drank in two of them, following Bill Clinton’s footsteps when he was a Rhodes Scholar here), their bridge of sighs, tons of history and stories about silly traditions and intense rivalries among colleges. A worthwhile daytrip.

As for HP stuff. Lots was filmed there. Grounds, stairways, buildings and cloisters stood in for Hogwarts. Much from Christ Church, below, one of the biggest and most famous colleges at Oxford. Either the word is out or everyone sees this college anyway. The line was long to get in.

The great hall inspired the Hogwarts dining hall but it only has 3 long tables so wasn’t filmed there. Though they supposedly copied even the ceiling for the movies. (No moving people in photos!)

We also went to a natural history museum in Oxford (free!) and there’s this odd Pitt Rivers museum tucked away in the back. It was packed with display cases of a ton of anthropological stuff … from lutes to shrunken heads all in a huge room. Bizarre but notable.

The HP tour in London also focused on filming locations. Sadly our particular day had to cut out some of the ministry of magic locations because it was New Year’s Eve afternoon — many roads in that area were closed off in preparation for their big fireworks. So we saw the inspiration for Diagon and Knockturn Alleys (though my Edinburgh tour also showed the supposed inspiration for them — I think the London ones were for the film’s visuals). And general stuff about inspiration for names and shops.

Knockturn Alley is the small alley through that doorway. Really out of the way and dark since it’s so narrow.

We saw things like Piccadilly Circus (very first photo in this post) and Trafalgar Square, plus the West End theatre district, but nothing terribly HP specific.

Being New Years Eve, after the tour we had to race to find fish (and in this case chips) for the Chinese superstition and had tickets to see a Shakespeare play in the Barbican theatre area (away from the West End — more alternative shows). It was Merry Wives of Windsor and had good reviews, though as my niece pointed out, it’s not his greatest work. The nice thing was that though I bought the cheapest nosebleed seats, we were bumped up to great seats in the stalls (like orchestra) since it was fairly empty for the holiday. The play was halfway modernized in dress and amusing though I think both Luca and I dozed off at one point.

But I felt I should do Shakespeare in London. And afterwards we made it back to my cousin’s apt in time for me to make my traditional Italian lentil soup — and have champagne and watch fireworks from my cousin’s balcony.

A wonderful way to end 2018 and ring in the new year!! I hope 2019 brings joy to all!