I am a fan of the Harry Potter franchise, so during my time in London recently, I embarked on a Harry Potter Walking Tour for Muggles in London.

Takes you to real-life Harry Potter locations

Priced at 14 pounds per pax, this tour is advertised as taking you through the real life locations that inspired the world-famous sets such as Diagon Alley, the Leaky Cauldron and the Ministry of Magic, as well as a few of the filming locations for the seven Potter films located within London.

Book In Advance

I had booked this tour the day beforehand, because of the small size of 20 pax per session, it is recommended to book in advance if you have a limited amount of days in London so that you can get the exact time slot that you want.

Hard to find start point

The start of the tour was near the Charing Cross tube station. However I had trouble with finding the location. 

I literally spent more than 20 Minutes trying to locate the tour group but to no avail. And what made things worse, was that Google Maps also failed me during this crucial time. 

So I was in a pretty desperate situation and I was panicking too, when I decided to make a toll call to the tour operator. I made the call because I knew that the meeting time of 2:30pm had come and gone by then and that the tour group would have already began without me. It was either this, or just forfeit the money I had paid for the tour.

Ministry Of Magic vicinity

But I have to say that the tour operator was amazing in terms of guiding me to where the group was at that point in time. 

I did not manage to get his name, but the person who was on the line gave me very clear and concise instructions, and thanks to him, I had been able to walk over to find the group within the next ten minutes. Fortunately they had not gone off very far at all.

Finally Meeting My Group

Once I had located the group, I immediately approached the tour guide, listening in to what he was saying. 

It turns out that we’d been standing outside the Leaky Cauldron pub at that very point in time, when I finally found the tour group.

The Leaky Cauldron

Usually this tour is full-house, but the day that I had booked had turned out to be a slightly smaller group of 14 pax.

Tour Sights and Sounds

Besides the Leaky Cauldron, the other Potter-inspired sights that we got to see along the way were the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley and the Gringotts Bank.

It was pretty interesting to see all of these sights with new eyes and from a rather different perspective, and find out exactly how these places had been able to inspire Harry Potter author Joanne Rowling in her visions of the magical world.

Knockturn Alley

For instance, I had felt that it was pretty amazing that Knockturn Alley was located right in the middle of central London, near the Leicester Square tube station. 

In fact, the eerie silence when entering the Knockturn Alley was a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of central London, and it felt so hard to believe that this place was literally right around the corner from the crowded and busy Leicester Square area of London.

We also saw the Millennium Bridge, which had been pointed out to us – because some scenes in the Half Blood Prince had been shot there, when the Death Eaters flew around the Bridge, destroying the iconic landmark in the process.

And as well, we had sufficient time at each stop to take as many photos as we wanted, to my delight.

Azkaban

Tour Guide Was Good

As well, I thought that the tour guide himself was also very helpful and patient.

When I had confirmed with him that I was the tour group’s “missing Muggle”, he introduced himself as Luke Lestrange and he had been really great in terms of filling me in on what I had missed, when we were walking from location to location, so that I could catch up with the group in terms of information.

Right from the beginning, I knew that I would enjoy the tour. For instance, I really loved the way in how the tour guides took on names associated with the Potterverse in order to connect with the Harry Potter fans.

And Luke also kept on apologising over and over, about the tour having initially left without me and in fact, also mentioned to me that I was not the first one to have difficulty in finding the starting location, too.

So this may be something that the tour operators may want to consider changing, in order to not “lose” any Muggles in the future.

Funny and Witty British humour

Moreover, throughout the entirety of the tour, Luke was also funny and witty, informative and entertaining, and lending plenty of British dry humour to his words whenever he was speaking. He was full of energy and his passion for the Harry Potter franchise was very clear. 

 As well, he also made sure that everyone was feeling comfortable and that nobody had been left out, throughout the entire 2.5 hours tour duration. 

So though I had booked and gone on the tour by myself, there was no segment of the tour when I’d felt as if I were alone.

This had been especially so when we had to take the Tube halfway through the tour; our guide kept making sure that everyone stuck together and was constantly counting heads through the journey.

And in the Tube, Luke also shared with us, the interesting stories behind the origin of the names of more popular characters in the Potterverse. 

Some of the names were pretty self-explanatory, for instance, Draco Malfoy’s first name is Latin for ‘dragon’ and the first three letters of his last name, ‘mal’ is French for ‘evil.’

On the other hand, though, Albus Dumbledore’s first name is Latin for ‘white’ and his surname is actually an old English word for ‘bumblebee.’ And if you look at Dumbledore, he really does look like he’s a white bumblebee, doesn’t he?

Luke also posed questions to the group from time to time, and whoever got the answers correct, would be awarded house points, just like how it goes in the Potter books. And to a small extent, this really made us feel as though we had been teleported to Hogwarts.

Time went by too fast

Ministry of Magic vicinity

And because of all of this, the 2.5 hours that we had for the tour whizzed by all too soon and we ended the tour within walking distance from the Leicester Square tube station. 

Despite the problematic start that I’d initially had when I first embarked on this tour, I would say that it had turned out to be a really enjoyable afternoon and that I had a whole lot of fun. 

So if you are a Harry Potter fan who’s visiting London, this is a tour that I would definitely recommend that you give a go.