Last day! The big event of today was heading out to the Warner Bros studio tour. Its a bit of a ways from my hostel so I had to take both above ground and below ground trains to get there but it was quite a tour when I did. The first part is a set of little intro videos followed by entry and intro via the great hall but after that you’re free to wander wherever you like. After the great hall there are a series of smaller sets from the films that have many props in them, and the audio guide I had gave me lots of info about all of them. They even had a huge train you could climb on to on platform 9¾

There were lots of interactive photo ops and special effects areas that you could do although they work better in pairs for the most part. My favourite part of the first half was the forbidden forest which was dark and full of scary creatures and even had fog rolling down by your feet. Once you reach the middle of the tour you can take a break for lunch and a butter beer if you like!

Next on the tour is the back lot where there are some outdoor sets like the night bus, number 4 privet drive and the greenhouse. You could go into both 4 privet drive and the greenhouse, and in the greenhouse you could pull up a screaming mandrake.

For the second half of the tour, there were lots of exhibits on Makeup and costumes, designs and artists, and some full size sets like gringots bank, and diagon alley. My favrourite was the bank, it had super high ceilings, huge chandeliers, and at the end there was a projection of the dragon destroying it.

The last stop on the tour was the scale model of the Hogwarts castle. It’s huge and quite detailed, including loads of little lights all over. I believe they used it for a large portion of the shots of the outside of the castle and it had to be constantly updated as new areas of the castle were described in the books.

By the time I got back to the hostel after the tour, a new girl had moved into the room and she was keen to see a few things that were close by as she was only staying overnight. We went to Leadenhall Market which she had found out was the inspiration for diagon alley and then we walked along the river to see the bridge and the tower. Then we got a bite to eat at the pub across from our hostel to finish off the night. A successful last day in London and tomorrow on to Amsterdam!