Category — Travel with Kids

Depending on when you go to Oxford, creating an Alice in Wonderland-themed day will vary from super-easy to easy.  On the super-easy end is when the town itself is celebrating its ties to Lewis Carroll (otherwise known by his real name, Charles Dodgson) and displaying the original copy of the books in the Bodleian Library or holding a Mad Hatter’s tea party.  On the easy end is when you show up in Oxford right after the museum closes its 150th anniversary Alice-themed exhibit and the next tea party is a month away — there are STILL too many Alice things to do in Oxford to fit them all into one day.

From London, take the bus to Oxford.  That was the advice we were given.  Not sure where the train station is but the bus drops you off right in the heart of the city.  The city itself is very walkable — we never took public transportation once we were there, and we walked from the bus depot all the way towards the entrance to town without any problem.

Begin at Christ Church College, part of Oxford.  It’s where Carroll worked as well as Dean Liddell, father to the original Alice.  You can easily imagine Wonderland when you walk through the gates and see the lush campus:

The first thing you walk past are the gardens:

Of which there are many:

Look in the background of these gardens.  I loved all the little wooden doors set into the stone.  They looked like the doors that led into Wonderland.

And it’s easy to see what inspired the opening to Alice:

If nothing else, just go to Christ Church to see the beauty:

Right across from the main entrance, there is a field filled with cows.  We ended up having a conversation with one, asking it to nod or shake its head to all of our “yes” or “no” questions.  The twins found this hysterical, but it also drove home that idea of speaking animals from the book.  Thank you, flies, for bothering the cow in order to get his head moving.

Now you’re ready to go inside the main hall…

…and begin exploring Carroll’s world by peeking through spaces in the stone architecture and catching glimpses of what Carroll saw daily that influenced his writing.

Your first stop is the cathedral at Christ Church which has a lot of ties to Alice but is also interesting in and of itself.

The cloisters are also gorgeous too, especially with the olive tree.

When you go inside, even if you don’t have children, take the children’s guide.  I found it better than the adult one.  There are a few Alice details in the church as well as a lot of information on St. Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford.

There is also a window that has a stain glass version of the Binsey well, which is right outside Oxford.  The Binsey well became the dormouse’s treacle well in the book.

The window was down for repair, but in the front right corner of the church is the Edith window, a picture of Edith Liddell, Alice’s little sister (in the picture, she is holding a feather).

There are other fun details in the church, such as the dog on the tombstone who has been patted so many times his stone ears have worn off.

And there are plenty of cool wooden doors leading to unknown places that will spark your imagination.

One thing not advertised at all that we only got to see because of a bit of random luck is the “Alice” door — the door that Alice Liddell ran through to get to her play garden — as well as the Cheshire Cat tree.  Both are accessed via the church, but you need to know to ask an employee of the church to see it.  The door that leads to the garden is to the left just as you enter the church.  If you ask someone to see the Alice door, they will unlock it and allow you to see the gardens.  The tree on the right is the Cheshire Cat tree.

After the cathedral, you can go into the Great Hall, which I told you about in the Harry Potter post.

The portrait of Carroll is immediately to your right when you walk inside.

There are other small details such as windows and brass characters by the fireplace.  Look around and see how many you can spot.  Apparently as you exit the hall, there is a portrait of a man in a red robe whose eyes are supposed to move?  We missed this, but perhaps you’ll remember to look for him.

We lucked out and got to see the 12 Salvadore Dali paintings of Alice in Wonderland, but that is one of those things that come and go.  Still, there is almost always something going on in town related to Alice in Wonderland.  We took a break and had our own tea party at Cafe Valerie in town and then headed diagonally across the street to Simms, another Honeydukes-like candy store.

There are many other colleges to explore in Oxford including Magdalen College with the deer park where Alice saw the fawn.

And pretty churches.

At the Museum of Oxford, you can see Carroll’s pocket watch (“I’m late, I’m late!”) or at the Museum of Natural History you can see part of a taxidermied Dodo bird.  You can go on a Hunting of the Snark geocache.  We took Dead Man’s Walk to the Botanical Gardens and found — once again — curious little wooden doors in the stone walls.  Peeking through the keyhole, we saw a garden: JUST LIKE ALICE!

We finished our day of looking for white rabbits with a visit to the Sheep Shop, across the road from the entrance to Christ Church.  It is the store that appears in the chapter Wool and Water.  You can now buy Alice-themed gifts inside.

Just a heads up — it takes about two hours by bus to get to Oxford.  But it’s definitely worth the trip.

Okay, so not exactly London, but fairly close to it.  Leavesden in Watford Junction is the home of the Warner Brothers studio, and you can now tour the movie sets in a tour called the Making of Harry Potter.  They recommend leaving three hours for the visit.  We spent over seven and could have stayed longer.  Seriously.

We hoped a train from Euston Station to Watford Junction, and then took a shuttle to the studio.  I have to admit that I got very teary when we stepped out of the train station and saw that big purple bus that would take us to the set.  The shuttle takes about ten minutes or so.

I believe you need to purchase your tickets ahead of time (vs. buying them when you get there), and tickets are on a timed release.  We got there a little early and they allowed us to slip in with the group ahead of us.  After you walk past the cupboard under the stairs…

…and see a gorgeous quote from JK Rowling, you are ushered into a movie theater to watch a brief film.

Once the film is over, the screen snaps up AND YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE DOORS TO THE GREAT HALL (yes, I bawled).

While the Great Hall scenes in the first Harry Potter were filmed at Oxford at Christ Church, all the other films used this set.

You can walk the stone floor, learn how they made the enchanted ceiling, and see the house counters (which caused a bead shortage in the UK).

After the Great Hall, you move onto a series of sets and props housed inside a gigantic warehouse.  There are costumes and wigs.

And you learn that in order to give Harry Potter’s clothing a scruffy look while he’s in the woods, they used multiple copies of the same outfit, each one with a little extra dirt rubbed into the material.

You can see the gates of Hogwarts that the kids pass through when they arrive via carriage or go to Hogsmeade.

The leaky cauldron from the Leaky Cauldron:

And dozens of sets including the Gryffindor common room:

And the boy’s dormitory:

And Dumbledore’s office, which they’ve dissected a bit so you can get a better look at all his instruments and things such as the cabinet that holds all the memory vials.  Most of the sets have a dummy version of a character in place to give you a sense of size:

And just so you understand, this picture of the potions classroom is just a tiny bit of it.  The set stretches on to accommodate dozens of actors at the same time.

And the Burrow where you can see all the various props moving as they do in the film.

And Dolores Umbridge’s office at the Ministry:

And the Mirror of Erised and the big pendulum that swings in the front hall and just about every single prop that you see in the movie from Lupin’s traveling case to Moody’s many trunks to Ravenclaw’s diadem and all the portraits and Quidditch towers and the Pensieve and…

There’s a lot of stuff.  We probably spent about 3 hours alone in that warehouse room.  Just to give you a sense of the size, when the room is empty, you can fit several airplanes inside.

And wait!  Before you can travel onto the next section of the tour, you get to see cases filled with a lot of the smaller props as well as the Black family tapestry (which is really painted on canvas and made to look with trompe l’oeil as if it is sewn into fabric).  There is the Marauder’s Map:

And issues of the Quibbler:

And the letters Harry receives inviting him to Hogwarts:

And Lily’s letter to Sirius found in his home:

And edible treats:

And galleons, sickles, and knuts:

Before we left the warehouse room of sets, props, and costumes, we looked at some of the vehicles AND GOT TO RIDE A BROOMSTICK!

You wait in a 20-minute line and then are taken to the Ford Anglia (which we flew as a family) and directed by the cameraman in order to get our facial expressions to match what was projected on the green screen.  Then we put on Hogwarts robes, and we each got to ride a broomstick.  For an extra cost, we got to take home five photographs of the experience. (It’s the only place where you can’t film at the studio since the picture wouldn’t show up since the background is green screened in.)

We brought a bag lunch but purchased butterbeer at the outside cafe.  Mmmm… butterbeer.  The Wolvog was curious enough to actually try a few sips after I removed all the foam off of his (you know… the issue with white foods).

You are actually eating lunch in the backlot. (I don’t believe you can double back and go to the indoor cafe that is in the front lobby of the studio. So plan accordingly: you will either need to eat lunch outdoors, beforehand, or afterward.) The tables are surrounded by things that you can walk into or up to afterward including #4 Privet Drive:

The Knight Bus:

The destroyed Potter cottage in Godric Hollow:

Plus the Ford Anglia and Sirius’s motorbike and the enormous chess pieces.  And you can walk over the Hogwarts Bridge.

And then you go into the third piece of the tour which is sound, special effects, animals, and lighting.  You get to see Aunt Marge’s blown up body:

And bow to Buckbeak:

And hang out with a thestral:

And learn how they made Robbie Coltrane look so much larger than the kids (hint: it’s not just a camera trick).  There’s the Monster Book of Monsters and Hedwig and the mandrakes and a few films you can watch that show how they do some of the cool special effects.  The twins are no longer scared of seeing the dementors in the films now that they’ve seen the dementor puppets (which sort of look like ripped up toilet paper).

And then you turn the corner of the last room AND YOU ARE IN DIAGON ALLEY!

I cried quite a few times during the day because I was so overwhelmed and getting to walk up and down Diagon Alley (which was transformed with snow and different store fronts to be Hogsmeade in the movies) was one of those times.  I just remembered how I felt when we saw the first film and Harry stepped onto Diagon Alley; I involuntarily stood up in the theater for a moment because I was so surprised at how the image matched what was in my head.  And now I was walking on the actual stone floor, looking into the actual shops used in the film.  We spent over an hour just on Diagon Alley alone, examining all the tiny details in the store fronts such as Flourish and Blotts:

I really loved Flourish and Blotts.  Like really really loved it.  Like took probably 40 pictures of it.  They were featuring Lockhart’s books in the window.

And Wiseacre’s Wizarding Equipment:

And the Weasley twins’ joke shop:

At the top end, you can see the wall that you need to tap in order to get into Diagon Alley (the twins tapped it but disappointingly, nothing happened).  I took several hundred pictures in Diagon Alley alone of each of the store fronts.  It’s really an amazing place, and the lights continuously move from day time to night time to give you a sense of the way it was used at various times of day.  You can see literally every store and the outside of Gringotts in the alley.

Afterwards, you go into a lot of the art of film making: the blue prints of buildings, the sketches artists created before making the various creatures, the cardboard models.

Many years ago, I took a trip out to Figueres, Spain to see Dali’s crypt.  You get to it by walking through this darkened room filled with cases of jewelry he designed for Gala.  It is easy to see how much love Dali had for his wife as you walk through the room, and your mind sort of focuses on that love to the exclusion of everything else.  And then you turn a corner and there is Dali’s stone crypt with his name starkly chiseled into the side.  I remember having this physical reaction to the movement from love to death that occurs as you round the corner, feeling physically overwhelmed and weepy, and that is the only way to explain how it feels to move through the fifth part of the tour: the model of Hogwarts.

You go through a similar hall filled with glass cases of cardboard models, and you can feel the love the film makers had creating this world.  And then you turn the corner and you are staring at this ENORMOUS, detailed model of Hogwarts castle.  It was so overwhelming that the kids and I sat down and cried for a few minutes.  And then we walked the perimeter, talking with various interactors (the names for the people who are standing about and can answer all your questions) who pointed out windows in the castle, drawing your imagination back to various scenes.

I took a lot of pictures of the model, but I don’t want to show them to you because I want you to experience it as we experienced it: turning the corner and having no idea what we’re about to see or how it looks.

Finally, the tour wraps up in a room that contains over 4000 wands in boxes, one for every person who worked on the film.  They are all mixed up, in no particular order, and we spent a bit locating JK Rowling, Danielle Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson’s wands.  And then just perusing names and deciding which names we liked.

Oh, and then the tour really wraps up in the gift shop.  We got off easy.  The kids wanted the official book for the tour and we bought them each a Gryffindor patch that I’m sewing onto gold and maroon reading blankets (you know, to wrap around as you sit on the sofa in the winter and read the books).

So we spent a little over seven hours and could have easily stayed for an additional seven and still not really absorbed everything there.  It was easily one of our favourite parts of the trip.

Coming up: how to plan an Alice in Wonderland trip to Oxford.

There are dozens of book and film sites for Harry Potter in and around London.  This post is how to visit all the film sites in the area (designated as HPFL for Harry Potter Film Location) as well as places such as Charing Cross Road to look for the real Diagon Alley (designated as HPBS for Harry Potter Book Site).  The majority of these sites are in London proper, though we also traveled out to Oxford and Windsor.

Before we get started, here are some tips specifically related to Harry Potter sites in London.  Make sure you also read some general tips on traveling in London:

• If you have some type of portable e-reader, it’s worth investing in the e-book versions of the series in order to have all of them with you while you’re walking around.  I can’t tell you how many times we had to quickly look something up in a book in order to make sure we had a fact correct, or times when we wanted to read a passage while we were standing in a certain location.  It was the easiest way to carry 7 massive books with us at all times.  We kept copies on the iPhone.
• We also brought with us the movies on the iPhone.  Again, there is nothing like telling them you’re standing in the space where Harry stood before he was sorted in the movie, and then whip out the iPhone to prove it.  We watched snippets of the films in every location.
• We cannot recommend enough getting the Harry Potter walking tour PDF.  Go to that site and request it, and the creator of the PDF will email it to you.  It is an amazing resource and the only reason we didn’t follow it to a T is that the kids haven’t read past book three.

Searching for the Real Diagon Alley (HPBS)

Diagon Alley is supposed to be somewhere off of Charing Cross Road, with the Leaky Cauldron nestled between a bookshop and a record shop.  We started at Leicester Square and wandered around that Charing Cross area.  We went into Hardy’s Original Sweet Shop, pretending it was Honeydukes.

We walked down Goodwin’s Court, which felt quieter and more magical than the surrounding streets.

We came to Cecil Court, which looks like Diagon Alley.  There are a lot of antique and specialty stores there including Watkins Books, the oldest occultist and mystical bookshop in the world.  Colin Narbeth and Sons had Gringotts bank notes in their window.

Across from Charing Cross Station is Davenport’s, a magic shop.  We went down there hoping the employees would know how to get into Diagon Alley, but instead ended up seeing a few magic tricks.

The Leaky Cauldron in the Movies (HPML)

While we never found the real Diagon Alley, we did go to Leadenhall Market, which Harry and Hagrid walked through on their way to the Leaky Cauldron in the first film.

The door of this store (Glass House) was painted black and it was used in the movie as the doorway to the pub.

The Ministry of Magic (HPML and HPBS)

Near Great Scotland Yard (Embankment stop on the tube) is the location for the visitor’s entrance to the Ministry of Magic as seen in movies five and seven.

While you stand there, imagine the Ministry underneath the streets.  There is even a square in the ground that looks as if it may have once housed the visitor’s entrance phone booth.  The Westminster tube station was used for the internal shots of the Ministry of Magic.  It’s easy to stand on the platform and imagine witches and wizards tumbling out of the fires as they travel by Floo powder.

Gringotts (HPML)

Australia House was used for the internal shots of Gringotts bank.  While you can’t go inside, you can stand in the vestibule and peek through the window at the gorgeous black and white floor.  Right outside Australia House is St. Clement Danes, so totally worth the trip out there.

Kings Cross Station (HPML and HPBS)

While all the Harry Potter locations were exciting, none were as emotional as being at Kings Cross.  If you go back towards Platform 9, you’ll see that someone has put up a sign saying Platform 9 3/4 and embedded a trolley halfway into the wall.  You can take your cute, kitschy picture there.

But we lucked out and spoke to a kind guard who whispered to the kids that Rowling put down the wrong platform in the book in order to throw Muggles off the scent.  The real platform is #4 (a side note: it’s free to walk onto Platform 4.  You need a ticket in order to access Platform 9).  Sure enough, when we ran over there, we saw the familiar curved barrier that Harry walks through to board the Hogwarts Express.

As well as the bridge that Hagrid disappears from in the first movie and Harry appears on in the seventh movie.

Down with Death Eaters (HPML)

We walked across Millennium bridge which appears at the beginning of the sixth film and was decimated by the Death Eaters.

Eton College (er… not really a Harry Potter per se, but gives the kids a good sense of a boarding school)

While you can’t go to the actual Hogwarts (and anyway, the real Hogwarts is in Scotland), you can go to Eton College and see a proper British boarding school.  The boys are always dressed as if they’re about to go to the Yule Ball.

And the classrooms have so much history.

Oxford Locations (HPML)

Scenes from the first Harry Potter movie were filmed at Christ Church in Oxford, including the stairs to reach the Great Hall.

The talk with Professor McGonagall before the sorting.

And the Great Hall itself.

There is so much we didn’t do, such as go out to the London Zoo and see the reptile house.  And there are dozens of sites we didn’t hit from the great walking tour PDF.

And, of course, if you truly want to complete the Harry Potter experience, you need to head out to Watford Junction outside the city to the Warner Brothers studio so you can walk on the actual film sets!  Which will be the subject of the next post.

Yes, this post keeps kids in mind when touring London, but you can easily do all of these things sans kids.  This trip is for anyone who wants to explore the history of London via literature (as well as pop culture such as the Beatles).  It’s obviously written by someone not from London, which I assume — if you’re a Londoner — is as painful to read as it is for me when people write “I Went to D.C.!” posts.  So… er… skip.  Or add in more tips in the comment section below.

Some general tips for traveling to London before we jump into an overview of the trip.

• Write up an itinerary before you go that contains all the facts you want to convey to the kids.  Believe me, when the days begin blurring you’ll forget all the cool trivia you meant to tell them while you were in Westminster Abbey or at Trafalgar Square.  Even without kids, my itinerary has always made keeping track of what I did on the trip so much easier when I put together a photo album upon returning home.
• Have your kids look up information on every site you’ll be visiting before you go.  It will help them to gather enough background information to appreciate what they’re seeing.  For instance, while we told them that they’d see the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, we didn’t tell them why the Rosetta Stone was important.  Which meant that when we got to the museum, they didn’t realize why we were dragging them to see a stone.  I think we just expected them to get excited because we told them that it was exciting.  We then had to discuss the importance of the stone for ten minutes until that information clicked, and then see the stone again.  We could have avoided a lot of this if we had taken time before we left to have the kids learn about important sites or items at home.
• Most kids rise to the occasion when they sense their behaviour will be determining what they are allowed to do.  You know your kid better than anyone else.  Don’t put them in situations where they’re doomed to fail.  If they are the sort who need to run around outside, there is plenty here outside.  If they are the sort who can tour an art museum, by all means, take them to an art museum.  But always ask yourself before you decide on a site whether you’re asking too much of your travel partners.  For instance, we really wanted to see Churchill’s War Rooms, but knew that was too much for the twins.  They would have probably loved Legoland, but I wasn’t giving up a London day for that.  So we all compromised and tailored the trip so everyone could be reasonably happy with our personal limits kept in mind.
• There are many Tube closures on the weekends (for instance, while we were there, we couldn’t take the District or Circle lines).  Make sure you look up travel directions before you go but also have a back-up plan in mind.
• There are plenty of great neighbours to stay in, but we found Kensington to be fantastic for kids.  We could walk to the park, it wasn’t that crowded and therefore noise was at a minimum at night, and there were plenty of kid-friendly restaurants.
• Be realistic about money.  London is a very expensive city.  The entrance fees to sites will blow your mind if you’re accustomed to US museums.  You can save money by packing a bag lunch and eating breakfast in your hotel room, purchasing tickets ahead of time, and opting to visit free sites with a few paid sites sprinkled in.
• Bring more than one kind of camera.  We brought along a point-and-shoot which fit in my pocket and an iPhone and ended up having the perfect picture depending on the lighting without having the camera take up a lot of space.
• Rent a wifi device.  Instead of using free wifi (always risky) or paying daily for the hotel wifi, we rented a portable wifi device.  This saved our ass many times when we had to look up information on the fly, but it also enabled us to skype with people back home and send photos right as we took them.
• Rather than have the kids keep a detailed journal (they were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel each night), we made an audio journal as a family.  It’s about two hours long.  Each night, we’d sit on a bed with the recorder in the middle and talk about our day, telling what we did and the random funny things we noticed along the way.  We got a lot more detail than we would have gotten if we had written for ten minutes and the audio journal became one more souvenir from the trip.

I wrote out where we sprinkled in daily Harry Potter stuff below, though I’ve sectioned out the pictures and details into two separate posts.  So know that information is coming.  And to make it easier to plan a Harry Potter trip, I’ve designated what was Harry Potter book sites (meaning, trying to find the real Diagon Alley or Ministry of Magic) which I’m calling HPBS and what was a Harry Potter movie location (such as where they filmed the Leaky Cauldron scene in the first Harry Potter film) or HPML.

Day One

We took a night flight from the US and skipped the airline dinner so we could go to sleep immediately on the plane.  We got a few hours of sleep — enough to allow us to function the next day — and then hit the ground running once we reached London and checked into our hotel.

We started off with a little Harry Pottering because we knew the kids were excited for that.  We focused on HPBS, trying to find the real Diagon Alley (see the next post on Harry Potter sites in London for the details).  And we ended up walking to Trafalgar Square where the kids played on the base of the statue of Admiral Nelson, enjoyed the sunshine, and watched a chalk artist (was it Bert from Mary Poppins?).

Heads up — it’s a £500 fine if you’re caught feeding the birds.  There’s also legend that if Big Ben in the clock tower chimes 13 times, the bronze lions will stand up.

The Sherlock Holmes Pub is in this area if you’re into those books (you also can visit the Baker Street tube stop to see the wall mural and the statue of Holmes).  Afterwards, we went to St. Martin in the Field instead and did brass rubbings in the crypt.

And swung through the Portrait Gallery to see some kings and queens before dinner.

Day Two

We went to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guards.

And then to a few Harry Potter sites (again, outlined in the next post), finally ending up at the Tower of London.  We got a great Yeoman Warder for our tour and then saw the White Tower and Bloody Tower on our own.  The kids were fascinated by the story of the murdered princes.

There are a lot of places to eat in the area.  We ended up getting coffee and then walked over Tower Bridge at night, which was beautiful.

Day Three

This was probably our least successful day (hence the lack of pictures).  We went to the British Museum, a lot of which was over their heads.  Again, next time, we’ll pick ten items, have them research them ahead of time, and then go to the museum so they know exactly what they’re looking at.  We also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood.  We thought it would be a big hit, but looking at cool toys behind glass doesn’t really excite kids we found out.  Lastly, we swung by Harrods, which was crowded beyond comfort.

Day Four

Seven hours at the Making of Harry Potter!  Er… this needed its own post.

Day Five

Started with standing at the location of the Ministry of Magic (again, next post), we walked by Parliament and the clock tower that holds the bell, Big Ben.

Then we went to Westminster Abbey.  The kids had worksheets to fill out and we had an audio guide to help them answer the questions.

Afterwards, we traveled to the Temple area to see more Harry Potter stuff and St. Clement Danes (“oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clements”).

There was more Harry Potter stuff at Kings Cross station (important information on that in the next post), and finally Abbey Road where we crossed the street just like the Beatles and saw Abbey Road Studios as well as signed our name to the wall.

Day Six

Alice in Wonderland and a trip to Oxford — this also needed its own post.

Day Seven

Took a day trip out to Windsor Castle.

We caught another Changing of the Guard ceremony.  We got to tour the state rooms and see Queen Mary’s dollhouse and go to the church where the Queen Mum is buried.

After lunch, we crossed the river (a short walk) to see Eton College, an all-boys boarding school for ages 13 – 18.  It was where Prince William and Harry went to school.  We took the kids there because we felt it was as close as we could get to a school like Hogwarts — old stone buildings, formal dress.

The Wolvog didn’t think it was funny how often we asked him if we should put him down for Eton, but it did lead to an interesting conversation over dinner about boarding schools in general.

Day Eight

We spent the day wandering around London, spending it mostly outside such as chasing pigeons in front of St. Paul’s and watching an artist there.

Or seeing a lot of street performers such as a fire juggler…

…and a weird headless man and ate street food.

We walked over Millennium bridge in the afternoon (which is in the sixth Harry Potter movie) and loved the tradition of lovers placing locks on the bridge. (I know this is done in many places, but it looked particularly pretty here.)

We ended up at the Tate Modern.  While we saw the permanent collection, the twins wanted to spend most of the time inside a performance art piece that was taking place on the ground floor.  Like three hours in a performance art piece — that’s how much they loved it (and that performance art piece probably needs its own post as well).

Day Nine

We walked to Kensington Gardens to see the Peter Pan statue.

and then continued on to Bevis Marks, the oldest shul in the UK.

Afterward, we hopped a ferry for Greenwich where we stood on the Prime Meridian.

And learned a lot about time before heading over to the Queen’s House to see if we could catch the ghost on the Tulip Staircase.

And finally, we headed back to London, to eat at our favourite Italian restaurant in Kensington, pack up, and head back to the US to tackle the enormous quantity of laundry spilling out of our suitcases.

Fini.

Coming up: Harry Potter sites around London, spending a day at the Harry Potter movie sets, and an Alice in Wonderland tour of Oxford.

A month or two ago, we were at shul and the woman in the row in front of us turned around at the end of the service and said, “your children are amazing.”  They were pretty damn amazing.  It was a night service, and it was past their bedtime.  They had nothing with them, so they had to sit in the adult service, which was entirely in Hebrew and try to seek out letters they know in the prayer book (hint: not many).  But they sat there silently, swinging their little legs off the end of their chair in a picture of patience.

“Oh,” I said, looking down at them.  “They’re just acting this way because we told them that if they were mature enough, we’d take them with us to England.”

The twins can now return to armpit poking and pulling hair; there is nothing to hold over their heads any longer, behaviour-wise.  We’re back from London.*

*******

We picked England as our first foray into international travel with the twins because it was one of a few soft landings.  We wanted to go somewhere that was just different enough but still had some ties to life at home, and we wanted somewhere that Josh and I had some familiarity with to make planning and navigation a tad easier.  We didn’t want a language barrier on their first trip.  England, Ireland, and Israel all fit the bill, and England won because it came higher up when we placed them in alphabetical order.  Actually, we wanted to do a literary vacation, one where you read a bunch of books and then go explore the setting (either the one in the book or where the author wrote the book), reenacting scenes from the book or trying to discern what about the space influenced the story.

So we read three of the Harry Potter books, Mary Poppins by PL Travers, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Before we left, I typed up a 9-page itinerary with Josh detailing everything they would see while we were over there as well as important facts to know while they’re in each space.  We did this because we wanted them to feel empowered while they were over there; equal travel partners who were in the know.  This was a great idea in theory (and we’d certainly do it again) but we found on this first trip a bunch of chasms we hadn’t considered until we fell down them in the moment.  So… yeah… I think I need to document the chasms for myself (to re-read before the next trip) and if they help you to not make the same mistakes we made, all the better.

We also ran into a bunch of random luck on the trip, hitting the right person at the right time and receiving information that made our trip magical.  In other words, we would have never found Platform 9 3/4 or found the door that Alice ran through if not for the random directions from strangers, and even returning home, I haven’t been able to Google and find this information online.  So I want to write that stuff up too in case anyone reading this (or Googling for the information) wants to find out too.

I’ve broken down our trip into

• The next post which is an overview of the trip, a bunch of non-book-oriented stuff we did, and overall thoughts on travel.
• Harry Potter: how to visit all the film sites in the area as well as places such as Charing Cross Road to look for the real Diagon Alley.
• Making of Harry Potter: we spent 7 hours on the actual film sets for the movie and the pictures are just cool.  Plus a few heads up if you’re planning on making the pilgrimage.
• Alice in Wonderland: how to plan an Alice in Wonderland trip to Oxford.

You may notice that there is no Mary Poppins day.  There was very little Mary Poppins-related to do in London with the exception of seeing where Mr. Banks worked or running into a chalk artist.

One thing you should know is that with the exception of the Making of Harry Potter day, we sprinkled in Harry Potter sites daily on our way to another London location such as the Tate Modern or Trafalgar Square rather than chunking it together and having full Harry Potter days.  But you’ll figure that out when you see the next post which is an overview of the trip.

One last thing, we planned this trip with kids in mind, though I probably would have taken pretty much the exact same trip if the twins weren’t with us.  I love books that much.  And we’ll take another literary London trip in the future, this time swapping in Tolkien for Carroll while in Oxford.  Or the Narnia books.  And of course Austen and Dickens and…

* I know some people who are reading this are actually from London, and were there while I was there.  We may have even passed each other on the street or sat next to one another at Wagamama.  While I thought about trying to get a bunch of bloggers together, the reality is that we went from early morning to late at night without much of a break.  I’m not sure how we would have worked in anything else since there was ultimately so much we ended up missing this trip.  Which is more reason to go back.