The next day, after a nice breakfast at the hotel, we drove to Stephen's home town, where the family paid respects to his mom. After a detour through Amersham (from 4 Weddings & a Funeral fame) to stock up on provisions (mostly English biscuits and the like), we headed to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. We got there early for a quick bite at the cafe before heading into the tour. The entire experience was amazing! They did a spectacular job of recreating the feel of the Hogwarts environment while at the same time revealing some of the inner workings of making the movies. We spent almost 5 hours there, and could've spent more! I loved all the recreations of settings like the common rooms, potions class, etc, but I also really loved the piles and piles of props and all the costumes. In an outside area, they had the Knight Bus, Dursley and Potter house and the famous bridge. Of course we had to stop for butter beer, but they also had butter beer ice cream! The train is set up so you can walk through it and see different compartments, as well as take a picture at platform 9 3/4. The newest attraction is Forbidden Forest, where you can bow to a hippogriff and walk through the forest of spiders (or take a detour and just see them from a distance). I absolutely loved the display of cardboard models and I admit to getting all verklempt at the giant Hogwarts model, beautifully lit to show it in various settings.
Of course we spent a good deal of time in the shop but I got a discount to the cafe, shop and for the tickets. For any HP fan, this is definitely worth a trip.
Our evening meal was at Royal Saracens Head in Beaconsfield with Stephen's brother's family. We think they must have forgotten us half way through as there was a long wait for our meals and some of them seemed over done, although the food was delicious despite that. They had a fancy chocolate bomb dessert where the server pours hot sauce on a golden chocolate ball that melts.
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