Alnwick has been my favorite excursion! It was great to finally get to experience being at a castle, the atmosphere is just amazing. We had a fantastic tour guide and got to learn about the defense systems of the castle and even the art displayed inside. The staterooms are beautiful and I thought the emphasis on family history there was very neat.
Since it was a class excursion, there were plenty of filming locations from the Harry Potter movies to see as well!
Some of the entry ways were recognizable from the movies. The most well known location though was quidditch training. We got to fly on brooms! Ok, jump, but close enough! We may have also actually brought up movie stills to match the film.
Our next trip was to Edinburgh, Scotland! The city is definitely on my list of the most incredible places to visit. It's a small city but so full of life and culture. We stayed in a hostel right across from the castle, which was an awesome experience. The hostel itself was really unique. There was a disco ball in the entry and even sets of armor and colorful paintings. After dropping off our bags, we set to walking down the royal mile and went to eat at the Elephant House. We had a great dinner and I was in awe of being able to spend time at a location that inspired
many authors, J.K. Rowling in particular.
The next day we grabbed breakfast and headed to get an even closer look at the castle. Then we explored the royal mile and markets more. There are so many fascinating street performers and artists! We watched acrobats and fire jugglers just for a start. Also,
you can hear bagpipes just
about everywhere you go. Later our group joined in on the Potter trail to see more inspiration for the story. We went by the street that Diagon Alley is based off of and got to find out the influences behind many character names. After, we shopped around a bit and went to take photos. The next day we started off by hiking Calton Hill. It wasn't the climb to Arthur's Seat, but I think we got just as good of view if not better! The photo to the side was just up the hill and not going to the top of the 143 step Nelson Monument. We got lunch at the Spoon Cafe, another place of writing inspiration, before catching the train back. I finally tried haggis, not as bad as I expected! We trekked back to the train station then for the 5 hour ride back to London.
In no time it was our last class excursion, this time to Oxford! We went first to the library to learn about it's history and how it was used in the films. I thought it being the location of the restricted section was fitting, there are quite a few steps for getting access to any of the books in the upstairs library. Many of the books had even been in chained libraries before. It was still surreal to be surrounded by so much history and the underground system was interesting to see. There are study areas but also transport systems to get requested documents to the main library. We all had a break for lunch and shopping after the tour. The next tour was at the
Christ's Church campus. Our first site was the quad and pond where our guide shared stories of some student's campus traditions. There were a quite few elegant gardens to explore. The first having a large area of unique, colorful plants named from films. Also, a door in the garden wall is where the Alice who inspired Alice in Wonderland would look through the keyhole to see in. Another garden was home to the Jabberwocky tree, the largest and most unique tree I've ever seen. Eventually, we went inside and visited the room that inspired the great hall and the stairs we see in the Harry Potter films. We learned more about political history and Alice too from all of the portraits and stained glass window. We also found the entrance to the room of requirement on the way out. There was so much to see and Oxford was definitely an adventure for the books, for sure worth frantically running to catch the train!
P.S. The Waterstone's Piccadilly release party for the Cursed Child script was this weekend and so was comic con! Had an amazing time getting to be part of the excitement!
