HARRY POTTER!

Anyone who knows us well, knows that the kids (and ok, lets be honest, and myself!) are huge Harry Potter fans.  We have loved the books, loved the movies, and just all around love anything that has to do with Harry Potter's world!  So, naturally, traveling in England and Scotland...we just had to do some Harry Potter sights.  I think this was the highlight for the girls.  We didn't do it all in one day, but we did see something "Harry-ish" everyday, and it was what the girls looked forward to the most.

Going to where it all began!  this is The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling was inspired and began to write Harry Potter.  Hannah can recite the story at length.  Here at Elephant House, they have a policy that if your eating (or drinking since it is primarily a coffee house), the table is yours until your done, and the waiters leave you alone.  That is pretty much the policy Europe wide.  So, Heat being expensive in Europe, J.K. would bring her baby here during the day, where it was nice and toasty warm.  This place is set up on a hill, and the back is a steep drop off.  The whole back room is filled with windows the look out towards Edinburgh Castle and St. Giles Cathedral.  The prefect place for witches and wizard, princesses and knights, and Dragons to come alive.  She would sit in the back, with a view of the castle, and drink half her cup and write in the warmth.  When she was done writing for the day she would finish her cup, pay and leave.  Genius way to partake of free heat!

We ordered our cups of Hot cocoa.

It was ok, but we mostly did it to drink something from the place where Harry was created.  Who knows, maybe that creativity will rub off on us??

A stop at King's Cross Station (which is HUGE, can I just say!) to see Platform 9 3/4.

Then we also decided to eat dinner here in a little food court, balcony area right across from the platform.  There was a delicious little fresh mex place there, that reminded us a lot of Chipotle back home.  We quite enjoyed it, and also enjoyed watching all the "tourists" take their pictures at the Platform.

Next stop, Leadenhall market.  This is where some of the outside shots of Diagon Alley were taken.  You see Harry and Hagrid walking up this street in the first movie.  It is a preserved Victorian Market, now all resturaunts with a flea market atmosphere.  It is squished between towering sky scrapers in London's financial district.  You would never know it was there, until you happen upon it.  You can still see the metal hooks that the butchers used to hang their daily cuts of meat out on.  It was a pretty cool little place to see.

 So cool in fact, that we decide to have lunch here.  We had a delicious jacket potato (baked potato with toppings) and a panini.  The guys here were hilarious, and everything is made to order.  No menu...just tell us how you like it and we will make it.  It was a very enjoyable lunch!

Next stop...Honeydukes candy shop.

Of course, there is no real Honeydukes...but you see the inspiration for Honeydukes all over Great Britain.  That is how they sell candy here, in awesome, old fashioned (we would say), candy shops.  We went to this one, specifically because they put together a Harry Potter candy assortment bag.  We got Lemon sherbets, licorice wands, chocolate wizards, Chocolate frogs, and ....every flavor beans!  And yes, they were every flavor...I ate a moldy cheese one.  It tasted just like moldy cheese!

Inside the candy shop.  I found it amusing that Lucky Charms and Pop tarts are sold in the candy shop...!!!

 Here is the secret entrance to the Ministry of Magic.  There is not a telephone booth on this corner...that was a prop brought in for the movie.  I think they should have left it there!  However, it was fun to see this corner.  We recognized it instantly!

We did convince the girls to squish in a phone booth at a different location...just to see what happened.

 The crown jewel of our Harry Potter expereience was going to Alnwick Castle, which is used as the base for Hogwarts in the first two movies.  I recognized Hogwarts as soon as I saw it...it was magical, I could tell!

 The girls got to pick out wands and spell books

and then we took a picture HERE.  Recognize it...?  This is the courtyard where Harry learns how to fly a broomstick!  And he zooms after Draco to get back Nevell's remember all.  It was pretty neat to see in person.

 Here, Hannah is not only "spelling" dad, but behind Matt you can see a courtyard and a door into the castle.  This door leads to the state rooms and the main living areas for the family that lives here (yes, this is a live and functioning castle.  The Duke of Northumberland lives here with is wife and their two boys.  In fact, Prince Charles had stayed here with the family just the weekend before as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee tour)  Back to the story now, this is the courtyard that you see Hagrid dragging a Christmas tree across in the first movie.  Then he enter's Hogwarts through that entryway you see behind Matt.

We went inside and toured the State rooms, which I loved!  You could visible see evidence that people actually live in these ornate and beautiful rooms.  In the huge, amazing library, you would see animal print bean bag chairs stuffed in the corner among 18th century antiques.  In the salon you would see a flat screen TV, nestled among antique vases and china.  It was just incredibly cool!  The staff was very informative  and when they would see our rambunctious boys zoom past...we were regaled with stories about the Duke's boys and the different items they had broken over the years by playing ball in the house.  The girls loved going through the state rooms as well, because the Duchess had cleverly hidden little stuffed owls in each room.  There were 8 in all, and if the kids found all 8, they received a prize at the end.  The girls LOVED this...and Matt and I enjoyed it as well!  Nothing like a good "treasure" hunt inside a medieval castle!

 We took the tour offered, that took us around the different area's of the castle that were used in the movie.  It was pretty cool!  It was the first tour we have ever been on, where the kids fought to be right next to the guide, sat quietly and listened and were eager to get up to follow him to the next spot on the tour.  It was a fun tour.

 That concludes our Harry Potter experience until we are able to go to Universal Studios Florida in a couple of years.   Until then, we have beautiful pictures and memories of Hogwarts.  This was our Favorite castle we have been in, in all of Europe thus far.  It will probably stay our favorite even after our grand tour of Europe is over.  I don't think anything can top it!

An Extra Day in London and Hadrian's Wall

We wanted to see Hadrian's wall while traveling from Scotland, back down to London.  The Roman empire had such a hard time with the Scottish, or Picts, that Hadrian built a wall, complete with gaurd towers and forts, that stretched from coast to coast.  Cutting off the North (now Scotland) from the South.  We found one cool stretch, just off the side of the road, that was the best to see.  All the other spots we went to, that supposedly were the best, were a bit of a disappointment.  Mainly because the local sheep farmers use stone walls to seperate their fields.  It was hard to tell which were sheep farm walls, and which were parts of Hadrian's wall...It all looked the same!

 A pretty view of the english countryside

 We had an extra day in London to tour.  We decided to hit some Harry Potter sites (in a later post) and also see some sites we had missed in London.  One was the British Musuem.  London is like D.C., all the musuems are free, which is great for large families!

The main things to see in this musuem are the Rosetta Stone.

Which was pretty awesome to see in person.  This unlocked the code of ancient languages, so essential to learning about ancient civilizations.  Imagine all the History we might not have, if this stone was never found!

The musuem also has an extensive mummy collection.  This was a favorite.  They had fish mummies, cow mummies, and Cat mummies!  

Don't know who that fellow is, but he seems pretty interested in that cat mummy there.

We also saw the Japanese rooms, and an Easter Island statue, which my kids will alls refer to as bubba, thanks to "Night at the Musuem".

We walked around the financial district of London too, just for fun.

 found some more mascots

 and just generally had a good time as we finished off our London experience.

It's a Coo

I really wanted a picture of a Scottish Highland cow or (Coo, as they say)

I finally found him, up by Loch Ness!

Castle hunting

 We also did some castle hunting on our last evening in Scotland.

This is Tantallon Castle

 This is the rock in the bay by the castle.  We called it "Bird Rock", because as you zoom up close, all those white specks are actually hundreds and hundreds of birds!

 Blacknes Castle

This was used as a prison during Mary Queen of Scots time.

One of my favorite things about Europe, are all the old castle ruins.  They are so neat to explore!

Stirling and Edinburgh

On our last day in Scotland we did a nice little loop through Stirling, the William Wallace monument and Edinburgh.

 a view of the back of Stirling castle.

I wanted to come here because of all the history...He who holds Stirling, holds Scotland.  Not only true during Robert the Bruce/William Wallace times, but throughout ancient Scotland history.

They have kept the medieval market street pretty much in tact.  you can look through the windows and see where the bakery was, a tannery, and the old city jail.

 The scots were shorter back then...

 Stirling castle

 Cora on the stirling ramparts, looking at the William Wallace monument off in the distance

 Wallace monument

 The busy streets of Edinburgh

 St. Giles Cathedral

 I loved all the bagpipers out on the streets.  This old fellow looks just like one my friends took a picture with, when they were here last spring.  He was really cute, and so talented.  He would ask you to sing a favorite song or melody for a few lines, and then he would join right in on the pipes.  Pretty amazing to listen too!

 Edinburgh castle

After a long day, touring Scotland, my kids like to just take a rest outside of old castle walls.

Scotland was so much fun to visit!

Clackmannan

One of the lines in Matt's family history can be traced back to this area of Scotland.  He has great grandparents and great-great grandparents that were born in Clackmannan, and other's further back that were born and raised in the Clackmannan county.  His great-great grandparents were married in Clackmannan.  We took special interest because this is the Hunter line, who Hunter is named after.

 Here is the ruin of the village Town Hall, the clock tower still stands.

 This is the Clackmannan Parish church, standing when Matt's ancestors lived in this area.  Although it was closed when we got here, so we have no records, we suspect that since this is the only church in town...that it is where Matt's greats were married.

 Most of the ancestors in Matt's direct line immigrated to the states before the passed on, so none were buried in Scotland.  However, we did fine a couple headstones with the surname Hunter.  I imagine they are probably off shoots...distant cousins or something, to Matt.  The dates were worn away, and all we had were the names.  This was Mary Hunter

 At the top of the hill, overlooking the town is this massive tower.  At one point in the early 1100's BC there may have been a residence here.  There is mention in the records of a castle on this site, at one point.  However, in the 1300's this site was given to Sir Robert Bruce.  He built this tower, and his family line lived here until the 1800's...when they decided to no longer live there.  It has been empty since.  But would have been one of the land marks Matt's ancestors saw everyday they lived here.

Decedents of the Hunter line