Day 8 – Harry Potter and Harrods

One of things I find interesting about England are the automatic coffee machines. These are super high-tech machines that spit out freshly ground espresso and steamed milk based upon your computerized inputs. Even the Starbucks seem to have these instead of letting baristas craft your coffee for you.

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Today is our scheduled trip to the Warner Brother’s Studio is Leavesdon, home to the Harry Potter movies for ten years of production. The sounds stages were converted into a tourist attraction that opened just a few years ago, after the last film was completed. We had a great time seeing the sets, videos by the cast and crew, the anamatronics and we even drank some butterbeer.

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Posing with some Wizard Chess pieces.20130620-080546.jpg

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A panorama of the Black family tapestry.20130620-080749.jpgStanding in Diagonalley.

After leaving Leavesdon we had about an hour drive to London. Our hotel is at the far end of Hyde Park, so we decided to drive in and park overnight. We were able to avoid the congestion charges by a few blocks. After parking the car and stowing bags we went for a walk through Hyde Park.  Along the way we came across the “Round Pond” which is not quite accurately named as it is actually more oblong.  But, there were some baby ducks we stopped to look at.

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On the other side of Hyde Park is Harrods, a seven story department store.  We went in to check out the Egyptian Escalator at Harrods. There is nothing like being surrounded by million dollar cars to make you feel like you’re traveling on a budget.

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On the way out we saw a bike cabby and a chauffeur get into a bit of a scuffle.  I’m not sure what the issue was, but the cabby was getting as close to the car as possible and the chauffeur wasn’t having it.20130620-081603.jpg

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