Harry Potter

Site visits - May 18, 2018 & May 25, 2018

I am one of the few people I know that have never read the Harry Potter series, or even seen the movies. The rest of my family has (we own every book) but I was never very interested in reading the novels. My flatmate Julia, however, loves the series. When she wanted to go on a Harry Potter walking tour and no one else wanted to go, I decided to join her as i thought it would be beneficial to my learning about literature. I thought it would be interesting to see why everyone thinks it is the best book series of this generation. While I did not really learn what made Harry Potter so internationally renowned, it was very interesting to learn how much of a cultural phenomenon it became.

The walking tour we participated in was one of London's Free Walking Tours where you pay whatever you feel appropriate at the end of the tour. Julia and myself paid ten pounds and five pounds, respectively. The tour showed us different sites in London that were featured in the movie adaptations or part of J.K. Rowling’s inspiration when she wrote the novels. One of my favorite facts from the day was the first one our tour guide told us, as we stood outside Westminster Station. The film company paid the City of London 100,000 pounds to close the Westminster Underground station for a day. However, the amount of footage in the film that came from Westminster station totaled seven seconds. I was completely shocked at how much money was spent for such a short time, and then impressed once I realized that the director wanted to stay as close to the novels as possible. It was also very interesting to me to see that London allowed this closure, as Westminster station is extremely busy, especially for tourists with Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben right outside the station. However, I suppose that the city understood how famous the series was and also wanted the movies to be as accurate as possible.

After completing the walking tour, we heard about The Cauldron, a place where, with the help of a mixologist, you could make your own “potion drinks.” The drinks would be able to do things like change color and fog. Once hearing about it, we immediately told our flatmates and booked a reservation. Upon entering the building, we were immediately given robes. With the combination of the robes and the decorations throughout the room (cauldrons, stone walls, and wands), we all felt like we were walking into a Harry Potter movie. While the venue is not affiliated with Harry Potter or any other Sci-Fi movies, they do recognize that they are fans of all these types of movies and do receive inspiration from them. Once again, the effect of Harry Potter amazed me. The books and the following movies inspired these owners to create a niche and very successful business that is fun for everyone, including the employees. Because of these effects that Harry Potter has had on London, I think I am finally going to read the series when I return home.