Up early this morning for shower and breakfast and then on the road by 7:15am. It was still dark when we were leaving and Lauren commented that it felt more like we were doing a 4am trip to the airport rather than a 7am trip to outer London!! We wanted to be at the Harry Potter studio tour by 9:30am and we were a bit worried that we may get caught up in traffic on the M4 or the M25. As it was the only slow traffic was getting from Calne onto the motorway and after that we made good time and got to the studio just after 9:30am.
The tour was amazing – it took us about 4 hours to go through and we were completely enthralled throughout. The sets they created to make the films were incredible, so much effort went into the production from costumes to sets to animations. It made us all feel like we need to watch the movies again with a greater appreciation for all of the scenes and special effects. The model of Hogwarts Castle, which was used in the filming, was especially amazing and listening to footage from the main actors talking about the 10 years of filming and how everyone became family and the studio became home to for them brought home how long they spent making all 8 of the Harry Potter movies.
After such an intense time here we were glad we hadn’t planned to drive back to Calne and instead we went looking for accommodation near Oxford as that is tomorrow’s destination. We were hoping to find a B and B somewhere between Watford and Oxford but the late afternoon dusk made it hard to see much as we went through the little villages and the few B and Bs we did find at country pubs were really expensive. We ended up settling for a Premier Inn in Abbingdon which, while it wasn’t what we had in mind, it at least was in walking distance of the centre of Abingdon and we had a very nice dinner at a local pub before walking back to the Inn for a nightcap and then bed.