Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace:
Personally, when I think of royalty, I think of movies. For example, The Princess Diaries and Princess Protection Program. We do have royalty in the real world and they live in real life, fairytale-like palaces that you would see in movies. You can find some of these palaces in London, England. The two palaces that I went to see during my time in London were Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace. Going to visit the palaces was something that was planned as a nice stop by and look at. After getting a look, we left and continued on with our day. The first palace we went to see was Kensington Palace. This palace was in a park, so it was a nice walk to get there. When arriving at Kensington Palace we saw a tour about to go in. Getting an inside look would have been interesting, so if you go to London that may be something to look into. Next was Buckingham Palace, and we had to walk through a different park. Buckingham Palace is where you can see the famous change of the Royal Guard’s. After a quick stop at Buckingham Palace we left, missing the change of the Royal Guard’s. Both palaces were gorgeous and, while in London, are definitely key locations you should check out. While in London, we also saw a bizarrely large number of King Charles Cavalier Spaniel and Whippet dogs, which tend to be associated with the royal family because of the name King Charles and because Whippets are a British breed of dog.
Barbie Movie:
While in London, the two movies Barbie and Oppenheimer came out. I do not like movies about war, so I never planned on going to watch Oppenheimer, but Barbie, I did want to go see. Our next stop after London was Belgium and to get here, we were taking a plane. Our flight was a late evening flight, so we had the majority of our day to kill and decided to see Barbie. When packing for Europe, seeing Barbie had not been a part of the plan, and pink is not something I really have in my closet, so I sadly did not wear pink as most of the audience did. Barbie was a great movie and definitely lived up to the hype. Watching a movie was a nice chill way to spend our last morning in London and it is super cool I can say I saw Barbie in London, England.
Harry Potter Studio Tour:
The Harry Potter Studio tour is a self-guided tour of the Harry Potter movie sets and props. Anything you can think of when you think of the Harry Potter movies you will probably find here. They did a great job of showing the displays of the work as well as making the tour interactive. At the start of the tour you can get a passport book to stamp throughout the tour. You can also attempt to solve riddles throughout the tour. At the end, if you have done this, you will be given a coloured bead for your house which you can add to an hourglass to help your favourite Harry Potter house team beat the other houses. Since there is so much to cover during this self-guided tour, there is a place in roughly the middle of the tour where you can buy lunch. To go along with your lunch, you can get a butterbeer, one of the feature drinks in the wizarding world. Also along the way, are a bunch of gift shops. These shops can be found throughout the tour and tend to have merchandise relating to the point you are at. For example, at the train station for the train to Hogwarts, the gift shop had a bunch of stuff with “Platform 9 and ¾”. Overall, the Harry Potter studio tour is a great tour for fans and even for people who have never heard of the movies.
Would I go again?
The Harry Potter tour is something I would definitely recommend someone see if they are in London. The Harry Potter franchise was and still is huge and being able to see all the work that went into the creation of the movies is an amazing experience. I would go again. Since there are so many movies and work that goes into this, I think if I went again, I would see even more interesting facts and new aspects. I would definitely recommend going at least for the first time.
Highlights of the Harry Potter Tour: Honestly, the whole tour was kind of a highlight. They had actual costumes worn by the actors and actual props used as well. They give you a walk through of what feels like all eight movies in the span of hours. One of my favorite parts though was the wall where they showed all of the animal actors. They showed all the dogs that played Fang, and all the owls that played Hedwig over the years.
Fun fact about Harry Potter: The Gringotts Vault Door had only been intended to be used in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone but the integrity of the door allowed it to be used a decade later in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
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