Scotland trip: Harry Potter sightseeing

The second one of the separate posts about the Scotland trip!

In comparison to London, there was a bit more Harry Potter sightseeing happening in Edinburgh. Sure, you couldn't visit any of the real filming locations in Edinburgh. For the people who want that and nothing else, London might be a better place to go. But for the fans of the books, Edinburgh is great! That's because J. K. Rowling actually was in Edinburgh when she wrote the books - all seven of them, I think. Naturally, she used some actual sites of Edinburgh, named differently, in the books. So you can visit the places J. K. really had in mind when writing the books!

Even if you just go to Edinburgh for "regular" sightseeing, you will inevitably be confronted with Harry Potter. We did the Free Walking Tour of Edinburgh first - and yes, they advertised it with "showing the real Hogwarts", for example! The next day, we also did the Potter Trail Tour. That's not an official Harry Potter tour but a tour organised by people who are Potter fans themselves, I suppose. Becky, our tour guide. at least looked like a real fan:

(She even had the Sorting Hat with her xD.)

 At the beginning, she handed out colourful wands we could use for the duration of the tour:

(Yes, mine was quite glittery.)

The Free Tour and the Potter Trail overlapped a bit, but this way I got the chance of taking more pictures of the places, so that was alright for me. And of course, Becky provided more inside and background information than Greg.

However, I'll just summarise what I remember from both tours. The Potter Trail started at Greyfriars Kirkyard - I told you you would hear about it again. :-P This graveyard is of high importance for more than one reason.
Firstly, it's the model of the graveyard occurring in the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (remember the story with the portkey at the end of the Triwizard Tournament?). There's actually a grave where some Thomas Riddell senior and junior are buried. Of course, J. K. had to change the spelling a bit in order to make the "I am Lord Voldemort"-anagram work.

Secondly, the name giver of another character in Harry Potter is buried somewhere there:

William McGonagall is believed to be the world's (or at least Scotland's) worst poet. For some reason nobody understands, J. K. Rowling is a fan of him. Therefore, she wanted to have his name in her book - and so she named Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts' Transfiguration professor, after him! (They don't really have much in common though.)

Next to Greyfriars Kirkyard, there's also the advertised "real" Hogwarts. In real life, it's a normal, although quite expensive, private school called George Heriot's School. But it actually does have four different colour-coded houses, just ask Wikipedia to confirm it!

(not taken during any of the tours, but on the way to a bar called Bar Bados xD)

However, J. K. Rowling didn't only get inspiration for Hogwarts from this school, but also from the University of Edinburgh. We only caught a glimpse of it during the tour: it looks quite magical - if you ignore the huge colourful posters regarding the festival (yes, it was literally everywhere) ...

The name of Harry Potter, at least the surname, is also connected to Edinburgh. Rumour has it that J. K. had already decided for "Potter", but wasn't exactly sure about her decision - until she saw Potterrow, a street in Edinburgh:

I swear, it's Potterrow, but they changed the name for the ever-present festival!

This way, Edinburgh seemed to have confirmed the name "Potter". About the name "Harry": nobody knows where that came from, I think. Could as well have been Harvey or so ...

The tour also covered the place where J. K. wrote the first Harry Potter novel. Unfortunately, the café that used to be there closed before the first book was published. So there's not really anything to see there anymore. But - surprise, surprise! - we encountered William McGonagall again nearby:

However, the café/restaurant where the second, third and fourth book were written, still exists. (After book four, J. K. became too famous to write in cafés, so she had to go to hotels instead. One hotel now calls the room where she finished the last book "The Harry Potter Suite" and rents it for £1000 per night!)

And they shamelessly call this place "the birthplace of Harry Potter". I mean, since the other café doesn't exist anymore, who would disagree? I guess the owner of the old café has been fuming with rage about this lost marketing opportunity ever since Harry Potter became famous ...

Since I had read about this place in a German magazine not too long ago, we had already been at The Elephant House two days before doing this tour. It's really a nice place, although a bit crowded (how comes? xD), and quite affordable. Of course, they advertise heavily in there:

But even though it's not the actual "birthplace of Harry Potter", it has something that makes it unique: its bathroom! Harry Potter fans from all over the world come here to write something on the walls (or elsewhere). I'm not kidding, just have a look at this incredible sight:

And just to make it clear: I only went to the ladies' bathroom, and only into one of three toilets!

Back to the tour: The tour didn't end in front of The Elephant House, but moved on to Victoria Street. Doesn't sound familiar, I guess, except for the fact that lots of places in Britain are named after Queen Victoria...? Well, yeah, but this street is actually the model for another street you might have heard of: Diagon Alley, the place for wizards to go shopping!

In this street, there's actually a sort of "magical" shop (witch tours of something like this). But unlike everybody else, they don't like being associated with Harry Potter. So if there are too many annoying Potter tourists, they put up a sign saying, "J. K. Rowling is banned from this place." :-D

I think, that's everything from Edinburgh now. But of course, that doesn't mean the Harry Potter sightseeing in Scotland was over! When we went to the Highlands, there was also a bit of Harry Potter feeling in the air. When we went to the only pub/restaurant near our hostel, you could already tell it from the pictures hanging on the walls:

The Glenfinnan Viaduct ...

... where a very special train goes!

That's right, you can find the real Hogwarts Express in the Highlands of Scotland! In reality, it's called The Jacobite and is running from Fort William to Mallaig and back every day.

(train journey: 2 hours and 11 minutes or so)

You can actually get tickets for the train, but it's quite popular (can't imagine why!), so you need to book early in advance. Anyway, we didn't take the train, but went to the train station in Fort William shortly before the train departed. And no, we were not the only people doing train sightseeing!

Here are a few impressions of the famous steam train to finish my incredibly fangirly post with! xD

Fun Fact: the train departed from platform 1, not 9 3/4. :-P