Weasley is befuddled by the Oyster card readers at Westminster Underground Station when he and Harry exit the Tube in The Order of the Phoenix (2007). En route there, the Knight Bus squeezes between Muggle buses on Lambeth Bridge (between Parliament and the Tate Britain). In The Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), The Leaky Cauldron's exterior was shot on rough-looking Stoney Street, at the southeast edge of Borough Market, near The Market Porter pub. (Good luck reaching the platform itself without wizarding powers.) Expect a 30-minute wait for a photo with the cart. Harry finds his way to the magical platform 9¾ with some help, but these days it's well-signed, with a luggage cart that looks like it's disappearing into the wall, and a cleverly located gift shop. Pancras International Station.) Inside the glass-roofed train station, on a pedestrian sky bridge over the tracks, Hagrid gives Harry a train ticket. (The fanciful exterior shown in 2002's Chamber of Secrets was actually shot at nearby St. Harry catches the Hogwarts Express train at King's Cross Station. When Hagrid takes Harry shopping for school supplies, they enter the glass-roofed Leadenhall Market and approach the storefront at 42 Bull's Head Passage - the entrance to The Leaky Cauldron pub (which, in the books, is placed among the bookshops of Charing Cross Road).

Harry first realizes his wizard powers in The Sorcerer's Stone (2001) when talking with a snake at the London Zoo's Reptile House. (Diehards can check British Tourist Board's more extensive list of filming locations.) But plenty of locations are worth visiting for their own sake these are my top picks. Many of the real-life filming sites are closed to visitors, far out of the way for most travelers, or an unmagical disappointment in person for all but the most committed fan. Other settings, like Diagon Alley, exist only at Leavesden Film Studios (20 miles north of London). Harry Potter's story is set in a magical, largely fictional Britain, but the film series used many real locations as evocative backdrops.

Filming locations harry potter