Experiences: Harry Potter Studio Tour

While my family was in London, my brother and I had one day, just one weekend day, that was going to be entirely to ourselves. So what did we do? We went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour! We actually did this last time he visited too, as we are both big fans (and both Hufflepuffs!)



In preparation, a few days before we had gone into the city to visit the Primark at Tottenham Ct Road, the best place to get the Primark HP merch. Unfortunately, they were lacking in t-shirts, particularly Hufflepuff ones, and we didn't buy anything, but Bro had the shirt he wore last time and I have made a new dress with HP newsprint fabric that I could wear, so we did that! As always, I had HP socks on as well!



On arrival, I realised I had dressed so well I actually matched the print on the walls! So we stopped for a photo on the way in. Since moving to London, I have now visited 3 times, pretty much lining up at once per year. However, every time there has been something new or an event on for us to see, and this trip was no exception.



We started off with the usual video and entrance into the Great Hall. I really really wanted to open the doors, as it was only a week before my birthday, but there were children who were also celebrating their birthdays, so I let them do it. I guess 30 year olds is not their demographic for that part.



The first special bit that we saw was the Hogwarts in the Snow event. They add in Christmassy touches, like the Christmas feast set up in the Great Hall, snow covered Christmas trees, and a lot of Yule Ball touches like costumes and set pieces (as the Yule Ball took place over Christmas during Goblet of Fire).



The other part that was new was Gringotts! They have reburbished and added an expansion with the main hall of the Gringotts bank, the trolley they used to get around inside the bank and the vault and bank as it was during the last film. I won't spoil it entirely, but it was pretty fantastic!



Then, of course, they have redone the shop too. So it was a good long time deciding what to get - in the end I got two keychains, a bunch of sweets and a tea towel for the kitchen. A very nice haul, and we ate lunch in the Backlot cafe as well (plus, the traditional Butterbeer and Butterbeer icecream!).



And in the end we were there about 6 hours, I think. We went in at 10, and left close to 4pm. What a fabulous way to spend a day!!!

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 9 (Munich to London)

Note: I am writing this a few weeks after the fact, as I only just realised I never did it at the time! Playing catch-up...

Our final day we only had to check out at 12, but we were ready with David around 10:30 so that we could head out to the BMW museum in the outskirts of Munich - via station pastries, of course. It was in two clear parts, the first part being all about electric cars and renewable technology and environmentally friendly stuff. It seemed to be the major focus of the museum but wasn’t what we were after out of our experience. Instead, we really enjoyed the historical side, which included every vehicle that they manufactured with lots you could get up close to and look at (but don’t touch, unlike some of the Russian tourists who were opening doors!).

After looking at all the older cars, we went across the road to the dealership. There you can see all the current cars you can buy and sit in them and touch them and all that cool stuff. Unfortunately we now have a car so are no longer in the market...

We needed to leave just after lunch time to get back to the hotel for our bags and head to the airport on the train, so we ended up getting lunch from a food truck we found just outside the museum. Unfortunately it was probably the worst currywurst of the trip, but at least it was convenient? Then it was back to the hotel, off to the airport. We arrived with what we thought was enough time to spare but all the queues were really long so it took us the entire time to get through and we got to the gate right when they called our flight to start boarding.

Then even arriving into Gatwick was busy, as there were no trains running to Clapham Junction! Instead, with all our luggage, we caught a different train to East Croydon and then caught a really long tram all the way to Wimbledon. We were very glad to get home... although we have to work tomorrow.

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 8 (Munich)

Our last full day in Germany (and together, for now) saw us have a little bit of a sleep in before meeting for our now customary breakfast at the train station. No tour today, but it was very cold so we decided to check out a museum first - the NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, or Documentation if Nationalist Socialism museum. It was all about the rise of Nazis in WW2 but through the documentation and paperwork like ads and propaganda. We arrived just before a guided tour started, so we joined that. However in a four floor museum, having been told the tour would take about 90 minutes, we were still on the top floor (where the museum started) after an hour, so we left the tour ad went ahead on our own. After a couple of hours we had done it all and it was interesting to get a different perspective in both place perspective and the different materials to other places we’d visited.

After that, we headed to another beer hall, only this time for lunch. More pork and potato! Then it was time for a walk before heading back to the hotel. Dinner was a nearby Italian restaurant as we were all too stuffed for more native Munich food at dinner after lunch too. Mum and dad wanted to have an early night as they were being picked up for their transfer to the station at 7am the next morning, so we said goodbye and headed for an early evening. We don’t leave Munich until the evening so have time to do one last thing tomorrow before we have to head to the airport for our flight back to London.

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 7 (Munich)

Today was the biggest day of our whole trip! We met in the hotel lobby at 7:30am and headed to the Hauptbahnhof again for a quick breakfast (although I didn’t eat mine until quite a bit later) and to go back to where the hop on hop off bus picked us up yesterday. Today we were on an 8:30am bus tour to Linderhof Castle, Oberammergau, and Neuschwanstein Castle!

We we on the second bus to leave, but luckily we were at the front of the queue and so got to sit at the front of the top deck of the bus! It took us about 90 minutes to get to Linderhof Castle, which was the only castle Ludwig II built that actually got finished. It was really pretty though rather small for a total residence, and the tour only took 25 minutes! He stayed there alone as he never married and was apparently very reclusive and mostly nocturnal, spending his nights reading and walking in the forest (although that seems dangerous) and slept all day!

Unfortunately the rest of the buildings were closed for the winter, and the fountains all get closed over too to protect them from ice damage. That being said, it would have been lovely to still wander but three was snow on the ground! We also didn't have much extra time before we were back on the bus and headed to Oberammergau. Oberammergau translates to "top of the Ammer district" and is a small town known for wood carvings, and their once-a-decade Passion plays! It was just a short 30 minute stop to do some souvenir shopping and have a wander. We bought a few souvenirs, I looked up close at some expensive traditional dirndls, and Richard even made friends with a shop cat!

Then we were headed out again, this time to the main attraction, Neuschwanstein Castle! It's the castle that inspired Walt Disney in his design of Cinderella's castle as well as the logo, and is also in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (it's the castle the Baron lives in - from the outside, anyway). It took us about 60 minutes to get there. We arrived at 1pm and were leaving at 4:30, so we had 3 and a half hours to see the castle. It was also built by Ludwig II, and is right next door to his parents castle. We didn't have time to go there though, as we had tickets for the 3:05pm castle tour. So we started with a quick lunch, from the snack stand (rostbratwurst and currywurst for all!) and a bathroom break before we headed up the hill. We were warned it would take about 40 minutes, but actually we did it in about 25, which was fortunate as it meant we were up at the castle with about an hour to spare. Richard and I decided that it was plenty of time to walk to Marienbrücke.

So we left the rest of my family behind and walked the extra 15 minutes over to Marienbrück, the bridge which overlooks the castle and happens to be the best spot for taking pictures of it. The walk itself didn't take long, but when we arrived there was a queue! The queue itself was so long that we only had a few minutes on the bridge to grab some snaps before we had to go back to the castle, but it was worth it for the gorgeous view.

Then we had to speed walk back to the castle courtyard to meet the family just in time for our tour of the castle interior. To be honest, it wasn’t super amazing, partly because the castle was never finished (they are actually still finishing it) and even the parts that are finished are constantly being renovated, so there was a lot of stuff we couldn't see. The audio tour itself was interesting, but I just don't think it had quite enough for us. Certainly, I think Richard and I would have rather have had the time to walk around outside and explore the exterior more instead. By the time the tour had finished and we had left the shop, there was only just enough time to get back to the bus for our 4:30 departure!

The drive back to Munich was very restful - it took about 2 hours, but given it was now dark and we were on the autobahn, even I was able to fall asleep and take a small nap on the way back. It was a long tour, but it was totally worth it to see those things and it would have been hard for us to do them without a coach to take us. On our arrival back in Munich we headed straight to dinner, as it was already getting towards com. We went to another beer hall, where I had a vegetarian meal (shock horror!) of mushrooms in a creamy sauce with bread dumplings. It was excellent, and Richard, David and I shared an amazing dessert called Kaiserschmarrn (Emperors Mess), which was a sweet egg pancake, caramelised and served with custard, fruit compote and rum soaked raisins. It may have been the best think I ate all trip so far! We did order too much though (despite ordering for 2 people and having 4 eat it!) so we practically rolled back to the hotel afterwards and went straight to bed.

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 6 (Munich)

Today we had tickets on the Munich hop on hop off bus tour. It had a much smaller loop, in fact there were two of them. We went on the express route, which took us past lots of the lovely galleries and monuments! There are an awful lot of art galleries in Munich. We did half the loop, up to stop 5, which was the Deutsches Museum.

It's a design and technology museum, and it's fantastic! We managed to skip the queue by buying our tickets online, which was very helpful as the queue was very long and it was cold outside. We split up and spent about an hour exploring the first few floors before reuniting at the restaurant for lunch (more sausages!), then splitting up again for another hour. We could have spent another few hours at least, especially if we could actually read the German captions!

After that we got back on the bus and finished the loop, heading back to central station. Then we had a browse for fabric (none found, unfortunately) and picked up Dads shoes which were in to get fixed for the day, before heading back to the hotel to rest up. Then we headed out for another leisurely beer hall dinner - only tonight I had venison bolognese, which was excellent! Then more apple fritters, and back to go to bed.

Tomorrow is the castle tour so is a very long day. It’s a 10hr tour, starting at 8:30!

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 5 (Berlin to Munich)

Up the earliest of all of the days so far today, because we’re headed on to Munich today! So we were up around 8 after only about 6 hours sleep, and were due to get a taxi to the Hauptbahnhof (central station) at 10am. When it got to 10:05 and there was no taxi (especially not a big one that fit all of us), we bailed on that plan and hailed two regular taxis to catch over there. By this time it was 10:10 and our train departed at 10:30, but luckily it was only a 7 minute drive to the station (especially in the taxi we were in, he was keen to get us there fast!) and we are the platform just as the train pulled up! We are unfortunately facing backwards, and it's a 5 and a half hour trip, but at least it's easy travel. Nicer than a plane, anyway.

We ate lunch on the train, and I had my first currywurst which was pretty great (it even had tortilla on it, which turned out to be crushed Doritos!). I worked on my embroidery, Mum caught up on her travel diary, David and I shared a podcast, and most people had naps as well! We arrived at 3pm at another Hauptbahnhof (central station), and it is only a 10 minute walk from there to our accommodation in Munich. This time, we're in a hotel in 3 rooms rather than an apartment and I think it's not quite as good, but I guess we do all have more privacy (and now we aren't all sharing the same bathroom which is a definite logistical plus for the mornings!) I think we must be in the Arab quarter, if they have one, as there are a lot of different cuisines around like Afghani and Turkish. It is a pretty quiet area though.

After settling in briefly, we walked over to the central part of Munich to have a wander. Munich has much more of an "old town" to it than Berlin, for obvious WW2 reasons, and it's lovely to walk around. Today was a good day in Munich with a max of 3 so we didn't last too long before we were looking for somewhere to sit and eat dinner. We have been having such early dinner, as my family are used to eating not long after dark - except that happens at 4:30pm! We found a beerhaus and had a drink, then dinner and dessert as well.

The food in Munich is much more what you think of when you think of "German" food, but really it's more Bavarian. We all had pork with potatoes and sauerkraut for dinner, just different versions: pork knuckle, various sausages, and pork belly (mine)! We also all had dessert for the first time, but mostly because there was apple strudel on the menu! I was the odd one out though in having apple fritters: they were basically apple pieces deep fried in a beer batter and in cinnamon sugar with cream and ice cream. Mmmm...

Now we're back in the hotel chilling and watching a film before its time for bed. Tomorrow we're on the hop on, hop off bus tour!

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 4 (Berlin)

Up earlier again today, but Mum and Dad got some washing done first thing so we were headed out a little later than other days. Our first stop was just about 10 minutes north of our accomodation, but it felt cold today! Yesterday hadn't been as cold as Saturday or Sunday had been (when the max temperature was only 2 degrees!), but today was about 7 again - but it was super windy so felt colder than it was!

We were under the impression that it was just a bit of the wall in a park, but it turned out it was a very organised and much bigger park than we expected, with lot of information and it was also quite busy. So it turned out to be more of an attraction than we expected! It was quite interesting though, as they had preserved a strip between the two walls as it was in the time of the wall.

After that we headed onto the train and over to the East Side Gallery. On the way we stopped in the East Side Mall for bathrooms and lunch, eating in a food court and giving everyone a break from currywurst! Then we were headed off, and this is not a gallery like you would expect. It's literally a strip of wall more than a kilometre long (I think it was 1.3, 1.4km long in total?) which has had lots of artwork painted on it from as early as 1990. It was very busy around and along the whole length of it but there were some really interesting and political artworks along the way.

After that we had walked back a station to Ostbanhof (pretty sure that's literally East Station in English) and got back on the train with the intention of heading back to the DDR museum as our last stop of the day. We were in the queue at 2:45 when the guy from the front desk came around and let us know that not only were they closing at 4, but that entry is at 3pm. And that it was going to take us 15-20 minutes to get to the front of the queue. So we had a quick browse through the shop, then headed out and back towards the apartment.

Along the way we stopped in at the Amplemann shop. The Amplemann are the traffic light men, who were originally from East Berlin but are now dotted about the place and are quite the phenomenon. They are also a good way to buy souvenirs that aren't quite so... Destructive, I guess. We got some cool souvenir bits before heading back to the apartment.

Of course, it is the 31st today and we have a vague plan for trying to get see some fireworks this evening at midnight. Berlin has quite the reputation for just letting off fireworks in the street, but there are organised fireworks around the Brandenburg Gate that we might go and see? I'm not feeling super great though so it might just be the other four going out. We'll see.

In the end I wasn't feeling well enough to go out, but everyone else went out to the main station near our hotel and watched the fireworks in the square. It turns out I got quite the show even from our balcony, as in Berlin literally everyone buys fireworks and just lets them off anywhere in the street. So they were everywhere, and a lot, and for a long time! It was very cool though, I've not seen fireworks like that up close before. Bring on 2020!