Welcome to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter - WB Studio Tour Part 2

~ Back Lot
There is an open area between the two studios called The Back Lot. This is where they showcase the larger sets, and offer you a place to sit and grab a bite to eat....or even drink a Butterbeer!
(I have not been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, but I'm betting since this is the original location of the films, its Butterbeer is better).
Sadly it does not come in a special cup or anything...and its about £2,50. 

Tom Riddle's Gravestone

One of the Ford Anglias

 The Knight Bus!!!!

Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike and I will be your conductor this evening. 

Privet Drive: they originally tried filming it on location, however it was too hard and needed an easier way to film without having to shut down a neighborhood for a day or week. So they decided to build their own (two houses..number 4 and number 3). This is how the Back Lot started, way back during the first film.



Also below is the Potter's Cottage from Godric's Hollow.

Hogwarts Bridge

 Fun fact, the bridge was never in the original novel, director Alfonso Cuarón invented the now iconic Hogwarts bridge for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to make Harry and Hermione's journey with the time turner more physical and exciting. This is the only section of the bridge ever built, the visual effects team created the remaining sections using computer -generated effects.

More of the Giant Wizard Chess Pieces, including the Queen that attacked Ron and Harry "defeated" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

~ Studio K
Studio K holds more of the effects and whatnot; such as creature effects, architectural plans, production artwork, and miniature models. (Because our camera batteries were almost dead we only have a few photos of this building). There were also two more large sets.

Animatronics for the smaller critters
and things

Larger creatures and Hagrid's head

Fawkes

There was also Buckbeak (that would bow to you) and the Hungarian Horntail as well as a few other big key ones. For buckbeak in order for it to look real but also function properly, they had to manually attach each feather to him. It took hours or labor, but hey worth it? The dragon also had a real flame thrower in it so it could spit real fire, the director was amazed that he was able to see "a real dragon." 

The next room was unexpected: Diagon Alley.

Following this room was the plans and artwork and a few small cardstock models.

 Of course the tour saves the best for last: Hogwarts Castle.

When you get to the castle, you enter through an elevated area, so you can see if from sort of an top aerial view. Then you can start to circle it by descending a ramp. You can't actually touch it, which is good so they can preserve it longer as well. But at all times you are roughly three feet from it, and the lighting does change from day light to night time, which is so beautiful.

From here you enter the tributes room, which looks like Olivander's Wand Shop. Its one solid wall created to look like the wand shop, each wand box has a name on it. Everyone who ever worked on or in any of the movies has a name on a box in that room.

After the tour, we decided to start our journey back to the airport.
Once we got back to where the bus stop that would take us to the airport, we realized it was still a little early in the night and tried to find a nice cheap place to eat. We found a "shopping mall" of sorts that had a nice pub to eat at. We killed an hour or two in there and then went out to wait for a bus.
When we finally got back to the airport, we still had about 8 hours until of flight the next morning at 7am. So we found some chairs and tried to catch a few zzzz's. It worked for a bit, but then it gets uncomfortable...soon enough it was time to check in and go through security and we were on our way back to Holland. All an all, a great 24hr trip to UK and back ;) just very tiring with all the travel with bikes, trains, buses, planes, more buses, undergrounds, overgrounds, etc. haha

Here's a link with more info and pictures :) Cultural Travel Guide - Harry Potter