Harry Potter Studio Tour | Review

At the very start of the year I got to visit the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London for the very first time. Upon looking back at some photos I decided to post about the experience there in case any one is interested in making a trip in the future. It is the place to be if you love the movies as the majority of the movies were filmed there in the studios that were there before they dedicated the space purely to the tour. The tour is longer than I could've imagined, you can wander by yourself at your own pace but there is a lot to get through and if you're a huge fan you'll want to take your time. This post will be full of spoilers about stuff that happens and what you can do in the tour so don't read if you want to be surprised on your visit! 

The first section is mainly props from each of the movies. One of the most exciting pieces for me was the Great Hall set-up. They had decorated it as if it were Hogwarts in the snow (they change it every once in a while to match the seasons and change it up a little if you visit often). We went during the Winter months so everything was snow-covered. The Great Hall was set up as if it were a scene in the movie with the tables decorated with food and garnishing and there are members of staff giving you information about the set and doing some small demonstrations. There was then a section full of various props from horcruxes, to costuming, to wands, and building pieces including Griffindor common room. There is an option to buy interactive earphones to hear about each display but I opted out as I like to read the signs and explore at my own pace usually. My favourite pieces from this section were the entrance to Dumbledore's office and the common room. 

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There were a lot of photo opportunities in each section of the tour, some including green screens and interactive pieces. There were also wand classes and interactive spots in-between and a lot of the behind the scenes into how they filmed/shot certain scenes like Quidditch. I loved how the tour was split up. The next section was into the forbidden forest (which you could skip as it is a little scary) it was so well done and the effects in that area were really realistic, if you've seen any of the movies you know how many creepy things live in that forest. When you come out you then get to see the Hogwarts Express and platform 9 3/4 for the first time, at first I thought it was just another photo opportunity, which it is, but you can also get on and explore different scenes from different films. After that you're able to head outside and visit some of the outdoor sets including The Night Bus, Privet Drive, and one of the pieces of the outside of Hogwarts. There's also a little cafe to refuel, with Butterbeer which you need to try if you haven't already. You can get it in ice-cream form too if you prefer but it's not made out of beer at all either way. It's a root beer mixture with cream poured on top it is very sweet but very nice.

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It took roughly two hours to complete the first half of the tour. I would consider this part the longest due to how much there is to see and the interactive elements. The next part is a more in depth look into behind the scenes, where there is detail into how costumes were made and the CGI effects which surrounded them. This showed a lot of detail into the creatures in the films like Dobby and how he was animated, as a lot of the previous props were inanimate. There was a lot to see here and you could spend just as long here especially if you're into special effects and makeup. There is also a section on different conceptual designs and inspirations from various artists. There is more set like pieces then where you can enter Diagon Alley. This was amazing to see the detail that was put into each shop to make it equally as individual and unique to the next one, definitely put you right in the movie scene. There was also a set for Gringotts at the end which was equally as stunning and detailed. Although Gringotts wouldn't be the place I'd want to visit first if I was in that world. There is then another interactive scene which I believe is new in this area, where a dragon seems to come toward you and breathe fire. It is very atmospheric and very clever visual effects to do the stunt, I'm sure there's videos online if you want to watch, but i recommend leaving it until you see it in person for the full effect.

The last little bit was probably my favourite and the most interesting to me. There was a huge replica of the Hogwarts castle all decorated under a snow effect. This was just magical to see. The detail of it is remarkable, and this was a set piece that was used throughout all of the movies to get shots of the castle for long distance shots. It's crazy how realistic it is. There's a lot of information about how it was build and its uses in the film around it and it was so stunning, I probably spent the most time here surprisingly. 

At the end of the tour there is a huge gift shop full of every thing you could possibly want from the wizarding world. Overall I really enjoyed the experience and I would recommend it. It is highly worth the money and you get a full days experience from it. It's not too far from London and if you are visiting there are tour buses that will do a day trip for it, and also scenes around London where they also filmed the movies. I would love to visit again in the future in a different season maybe when they do something new with it or go with someone who hasn't been before but it's a lot of fun.

Has anyone else been here before? What do you think?

Snapshots of Berlin | Travel Diary

Once again, it's been so long since I've written a blog post. I was so ready to get myself back on track and having regular posts but the whole month of January was just not a great month in many various ways that I won't get into and now is the first chance I've really had to start blogging again. I know I missed the start of 2018 blogging wise but I'm hopeful this will be a good year, not just for me but for everyone too. Near the end of December, I traveled with my boyfriend to Berlin and it was so wonderful around the Christmas period with all the Christmas markets. I know the trip was a month ago now but I thought I'd still share my photos just because I love seeing peoples travel photos and I love having a photo diary for myself to look back at.

The best thing about visiting Berlin around Christmas is their Christmas markets. There is literally so many around and they sell so many cute items and amazing food, I'm dreaming of it right now. This is one of the bigger markets at Alexanderplatz and we visited this almost everyday that we were there. They also had an ice skating rink, which was so nice and a cheap activity to do.

We visited a lot of historical sights and museums, as you do, and our hotel was about a five minute walk from the Brandenburg Gate which is such a pretty monument and street.

We visited Check Point Charlie and other various parts of the Berlin wall, but I definitely found Check Point Charlie and the museum very interesting historically.

The East Side Gallery was something I really wanted to visit and I loved the artwork, it was so different to what I imagined it to be. The historical and artistic combinations in Berlin are amazing, it makes it such an interesting city. There are also a lot of vegan food places around this area if that's something you're interested in.

This market has a wonderful band and atmosphere at night, I had eggnog for the first time here and I will probably never drink it again after, the mulled wine is a better choice.

We didn't actually go up the TV tower, partly because it was very foggy each day we were there, and also I'm not the biggest fan of heights, but I do think it looks great in photographs.

Rememebering all the Christmas markets is making me want it to be Christmas all over again, every where you look is just so pretty and the city was just buzzing with life.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my travel diary, it's long overdue. If you want to check out more of my trip you can watch it on my Youtube channel here. 

Has anyone ever been to Berlin before? What's your favourite places?

Bimingham Adventure Day Two | City Centre

To finish of my Birmingham blog posts, which have taken me so long to write oops, today I'm going to be posting about day two of our trip. Day one can be read here and Slam Dunk festival day three can be found here for anyone who hasn't already checked them out. As day one was a more chilled and relaxed day we decided that for day two we were going to travel to Birmingham city centre and check out what the city life was like there. It was extremely opposite to how calm it was on the first day and we had a jam packed day of shopping, exploring and just being a general tourist. I really love writing these too.

   

   

We got the bus to the city centre, and thankfully did not get lost on the way by some miracle. We got off at the Bullring shopping centre where we spent most of the day. The place is absolutely huge, like four floors with two separate buildings packed full of shops, as well as endless amounts of roads with interconnecting malls, markets and shops it was crazy trying to find our way around. There were just too many places to visit. There was such a beautiful cathedral right across from the shopping centre and I really liked how the old merged with the new it was nice. I spent way too much time looking around in Superdrug as the Superdrug in the UK is much bigger and better. Plus there were shops such as Victoria Secret and Krispy Kreme that we don't have in Dublin and I was super excited to visit. We picked up four doughnuts to try and they were so delicious and aesthetically pleasing I must say. How pretty and tasty do they look?

After exploring and buying a few bits in the shopping mall we decided to explore the streets. The cute cacti are from Urban Outfitters. The place seemed never ending and we were so tired after visiting almost every shop the place had to offer that we didn't end up going too far. I had wanted to visit some more historic sights but we got slightly lost and ended heading back to shop and took a visit to shops such as Lush, which are always a good choice.

   

   

   

All our shopping had worn us down so we decided to grab Pizza Hut for dinner, We got a Margarita to share with fries and bottomless Pepsi, which came in about five different flavours like cherry and vanilla it was so interesting. Again look how good the food looks. It makes me so hungry looking at it. Pizza Hut do the best thick pizza bases I've ever tried. So good.

   

We just headed back to the hotel after food as it took about an hour on the bus. Who knew shopping could be so tiring? Although we have most of the same shops back in Dublin it's always interesting to see what they're like in other countries. I'd also never been to a shopping centre so big before it was so intimidating but so cool I really wish we had something like it over here it's a lot of fun, but bad for your bank I guess. 

With this post is the end of my little Birmingham travel posts I hope you've enjoyed reading them as I did writing them.

Has anyone ever been in Birmingham city centre before or the Bullring shopping centre before? 

Belfast Trip & Adventure

I have no idea why this has taken me so long to get around to writing, I've been meaning to do it for a week. Following my last post, as I went to a festival up in Belfast, which is 2 and a half hours from my house, I stayed up there for two days and decided to be as tourist as I could in those two days. Being the photographer I think I am, I took an abundance of photos because I think the city is really beautiful and wanted to try taking more photos to capture moments. This was also the first independent trip I've been on so it was so exciting and momentous for me. That being said, this post will most likely be super long but pretty colourful.

   

    

On the first day we traveled up we got lost and ended up just walking down streets for a while because I had read the map backwards. It didn't bother me though because I love it there.

We did the typical tourist thing by going to a new place but going somewhere that you've been to before, we got a Starbucks. We chilled there for a while until we got back to our hotel to get ready for the festival, as seen in my previous blog post. 

   

     

Again, we did the thing and didn't explore at all. We went for dinner in a Nando's that was conveniently attached to our hotel. It's probably the prettiest Nando's I've seen to date. It was delicious as always and we got to meet Josh from Twenty One Pilots outside our hotel after the meal, I'm still fangirling. I already blogged about the actual concert so I'll just move on to our second day.

Our second day was our exploring and shopping day. We explored most of the main streets and spent most of our time in Victoria Square, the main shopping centre. It's the prettiest shopping centre I've ever seen. It's indoors and outdoors at the same time. The roof is made out of glass and it goes up super high up to this platform that you can see a three hundred and sixty degree view of the city and the mountains you can see past it. It's such an amazing sight but the top of the building is kind of like a greenhouse and it gets super hot so you can't really stay up there for long without melting. 

They had some sort of Alice in Wonderland themed thing going on when we were there, which I got super excited about. They had scenes from the whole movie there, both the original and the Tim Burton version. They had a mini maze for children, which we still did that was actually fun even though it was tiny and nothing like a real maze. They also had a cute little reenactment of the Mad Hatter's tea party which was actually so real feeling. Everything was just really cute and it really brought back my love for Alice in Wonderland and a lot of the things in it. Why don't shopping malls/centres near me do this kind of stuff?

We shopped for most of the day and bought a few clothes items and other bits and just wandered really. The shops were basically the exact same to what we have back home too so it was nice to see the shops with different designs and layouts. We went to the Disney store, which is tiny compared to the Dublin one and I got a Winnie the Pooh teddy bear that I've wanted for a while because it was cheaper there. It's my favourite thing from the trip, thanks Jack. It rained for the second half of the day and we got too cold to explore half the places I'd wanted to visit.

The last thing we did was go out for a fancy meal to an Italian restaurant. We got dough balls, which are the best starter ever, just saying and pizza. My pizza is the plain one, what a surprise. It was so nice but I felt sick half way through the meal and we had to go back to the hotel earlier than we should've which was really disappointing, I blame the rain making me sick. Even though we stayed in the hotel for the rest of the trip it was really nice to go somewhere else for a change, I never go away at all anymore.

I never went away for like a really short trip before and it's actually so nice and not as expensive as a week holiday, obviously but still. I hope to come back really soon or go somewhere and do something like this again. This post was really odd but I hope you enjoyed the travel journal sort of thing.

Anyone go anywhere nice over the summer?