Chris & Amanda

Time Warning: This post will take over an hour to read and watch the videos. Plan accordingly.

This was our first time taking the kids out of the country on a sabbatical.

We think they loved it. Kate and Kairi did for sure. Kairi would love to go back, and Kate kept saying that each day was better than the last making it hard to live up to that expectation. Wesley thought "things." This might be the newest version of "stuffish." You won't see too many pictures of him since he still thinks that photos are evil, but we did manage to catch a few here and there. Rest assured, he was with us the whole time even if he is not picture present.

A lot of our sites featured locations in the Harry Potter movie series where they filmed cool things. Other sites featured other cool things.

It may be important to note that Chris planned the entire trip. He is always such a good trip planner! Everything we went to was a surprise as none of us knew exactly where we were going until we got there apart from Chris.

Also note, that commentary will probably be short as the time it takes to compile photos and videos and blog posts from 4 people's images (Wesley didn't take any apart from requests) is quite a lot. You don't mind, right? You only want to see the photo's anyway. With us taking over 1,000 images each, they won't all make it into here.

To the stuffs!

June 7-8th

Our 8 hour flight was overnight so it didn't feel as long as some flights, but it was still hard to get any sleep regardless. Airport security went okay without any major complications. The kids did not think that the airplane food was anything special. There was a choice of pasta or chicken and potatoes. June 8th we took about 9,009 steps.

Kairi, Kate, Wesley in the back.

We arrived in London, England and took our items to our rented flat. It was up some rather steep stairs and located on the top of a restaurant with a grocery store to the other side of us on street level. For a couple, the place is alright, but I wouldn't want to live here forever. There was a front room and one bedroom and a kitchen.

Stairs leading up to our rented flat.

The bedroom.

The front room with three beds.

The door to the bathroom and the kitchen which lacked a microwave.

The thing that looks like a cabinet (with the paper taped to the side) is the freezer and fridge.

The oven looked too small to even cook a pizza, and the washing machine could fit a few sponges or one very small load. They are not big on dryers over there so none was to be found.

Stuff plopped, we could go have some fun!

We had taken the subway to Kings Cross Station, so of course we came across Platform 9 and 3/4.

Kate and Kairi at Kings Cross Station

We opted not to stand in this line.

Close by was a store that we walked through. Kate and Kairi decided to pick an item from their favorite house: Hufflepuff!

Robes in the shop.

After taking more subways, we found ourselves looking at Big Ben.

Kate, Chris, Kairi, Big Ben

Kairi and Ben. Ooo la la.

A cool double-Decker bus and Big Ben.

Right beside Big Ben was a boat tour of the Thames River. We got on the boat!

Here is a list of things we saw:

Our boat tour that went past some cool things like the Tower Bridge (a double suspension bridge) and the globe theater where Shakespeare performed and the pub where he drank and Tower of London where people got executed.

Here is a longer list of what we went past that I recorded on my phone notes: Waterloo bridge, somerset house, Wellington boat, Oxo store, shop, housing, Scholar building, Salt water and fresh water bird bridge, Old power station, The shard (pyramid building), Walking bridge, Globe theater, Rita bridge?, Shakespeare pub 1735, Sir Francis drake boat (black), 22 bishop gate and sky garden -free sky views, London c35 war ship built in same shipyard as the Titanic, Tower of London -traitors and death, Tower Rope Bridge, Pickle building – The Gherkin, Dock lands area, Butlers Warf, Where Charles dickens wrote Oliver, Super expensive glass buildings, Phantom of the Opera filming building, Captain of Mayflower Tower (the Mayflower shop can sell stamps from the U.S, and Britain), White oldest pub on the themes, Apartments and buildings, Carol II Rex building.

Chris and Amanda with The Shard (pyramid building).

Probably the Walking Bridge.

The London Bridge which doesn't look anything fancy. Huh.

London Bridge.

Part of the Tower of London. (It is a castle with a tower in the middle.) We visited this the next day.

An Alligator shaped cloud and Kate's hand.

The Eye of London. This is a Ferris wheel. We went on the boat tour instead of this slow moving thing.

Eye of London.

Chris, Kairi, Kate.

The Tower Rope Bridge. This one was fancy and we walked across part of it later.

Same Tower Rope Bridge

Amanda, Chris, Kairi, and Kate. Wesley is just out of the picture.

Wesley was nodding off a bit on the boat tour since he was tired from jet lag. Overall, the kids did pretty well with the time change.

Here is a short video of the boat tour so you can see the 360(ish) view.

We had to take a photo of the phone booths, and don't forget the double-Decker bus in the background.

They were closing up the market when we arrived, but we did meander in for a few minutes.

June 9th (A busy day!)

It's hard to put everything we did on this day into a short time span, so be prepared for a lot of fun. (Tower of London and The Making of Harry Potter are the big events.) On this day we took about 16,195 steps.

We walked the Tower Rope Bridge. Funny thing about this was that they were filming for the movie "OWL" on the other side of us. We might, but probably not, have ended up in a movie!!

You shall not pass!

Movie filming. You can see the cameras if you look close enough. The Tower of London is the castle looking place in the background.

Amanda on the Tower Rope Bridge

Kairi, Chris, Kate on the Tower Rope Bridge

After our walk, our tickets were good to get into the Tower of London. We went inside!

(Not pictured because it is not allowed, we saw the Crown Jewels. There was the largest diamond on display, the Cullinan Diamond, from 1905 that is 3106 carats, and the largest uncut diamond ever found, and then some black ruby that was also rather large (Black Prince’s Ruby), along with royals' crowns, swords, scepters, cutlery, and dishes.

Wide view of the Tower of London

We had a good introduction to narrow, twisting stairs.

Amanda through a window where the royal zoo animals were kept.

They used to have a polar bear, and elephant, etc.

These days, they only keep a "murder" of crows, and their group of them are pretty smart! So smart that they know how to stack up trash bags with their toes so that the trash at the bottom of the rubbish bin becomes accessible.

In no particular order, a bunch of images.

Kate and Kairi

We figured out pretty quickly that the lion and the unicorn are the royal mascots.

Kate

There was a prison tower here where prisoners would carve "graffiti" into the walls. In one part, you could try to count how many images of skulls you could find on the wall.

Prison graffiti

This room is part of the "Bloody Tower" where two princes (12-year-old Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, in 1483) disappeared and were never seen again. They did find two children sized skeletons by the base of the main tower years later. This room, though, housed a scholar (Sir Walter Raleigh) for 13 years as a prisoner.

Chris, Kate, Kairi, Wesley

This is the way they would introduce new people to the castle. They would travel up the water and open this gate making the entrance as grand and imposing as possible.

Kairi

Kate and Kairi and Chris's arm

A model of the area.

Time for a movie!

Enjoy some views from Kairi and Amanda.

Next up on our list for the day was to make some dreams come true. We took the subway and came out to ride a double-Decker bus to the Making of Harry Potter.

Oh yes!

Amanda on the bus.

Kate and Kairi on the subway reverse matching poses.

The entrance was lined with wands and chess piece statues.

We started out in a large room ready to be devoured.

Don't eat them!

At least we could rewind time if that dragon moved too fast!

Need to know how tall you are to Hagrid or Nymphadora Tonks?

Tonks and Amanda are pretty close in height!

Don't worry, Kairi and Kate are still growing.

As expected, the cupboard under the stairs set. Spiders anyone?

Amanda with her trolly going through the wall at platform 9 3/4.

Hogwarts Express

We then watched a brief movie and were welcomed into the Great Hall like this!

The doors.

Kairi and Kate

Kate

Next up were tons of movie sets, statues, costumes, items, movies, props... It was a lot and it was amazing.

Yule Ball anyone?

How about some potions?

Kate is going to enter the TriWizard Tournament. She has my vote!

Kairi is going to sneak into Dumbledore's office.

Kate found it too.

Dumbledore's Office

Good thing none of us got stuck at the Mirror of Erised.

Kairi and Kate enjoy a butterbeer.

Kate with an actual butterbeer.

Burgers, hot dogs, butterbeer drink, ice cream, and cupcake.

The Bogots closet. It did in fact open up on us!

The Ministry of Magic. Sorry, none of us traveled down the loo to reach it.

We were much better at attending divination instead.

Kairi in the walkway.

Amanda got in there too.

Amanda, Chris, Kairi

Let me know if you see any owls flying around!

Herbology anyone?

Amanda without the proper earmuff pulling up a Mandrake Root.

Pivot Drive

This house will never be cleaned up. Woof!

Kairi, Chris, and the cupboard under the stairs.

Watch out! It's a mermaid, and it wants to keep your best friend under water forever.

I really hope Kate turns around soon....!

Professor, help!

The Gringot treasures!

If you zoom in, you can see Kairi pulling a sword.

Here is Amanda pulling the sword.

Forced perspective tunnel.

The staircase didn't move on us.

Griffindor dorm room.

Griffindor common room.

Wigs.

The Night Bus.

Amanda and the bus.

Werewolf suit. A man was inside!

Dragon head and a thestral

Goblins

Gringots Bank

The vault where one tiny package (the sorcerer's stone) was held.

Diagon Alley

Amanda in the alley.

Models

A full room-sized model! They used this to record the flying scenes around the castle.

Okay, are you ready?! I said are you ready! Can you dance like a hippogriff? Na na na na na na na na na!

June 10th

On this day we took about 21,295 steps! Our legs were getting rather tired! This was the most walking we did in a day and after walking the other days, we were glad for a little less walking in the following days. The extra walking was because the subway machine wasn't taking our card and we didn't have enough cash for more trips, so we had to do a few stops on foot. Then we had trouble getting our passes to work anyway and ended up buying extra trips because it didn't let Kairi through. Then it still didn't work so we talked to an attendant who let us through. Anyway, we took a Eurostar train into Paris, France. Getting across the border was simple compared to airports. We showed the passports, got a stamp, and were good to go.

The cool thing about this train was that it goes under the ocean. The bad part about that is that you can't see anything. Boo!

Kairi and Kate on the train.

It was raining in Paris, so we were glad to have our rain jackets. Most of us remembered to bring them...

Here is Kairi and Kate in front of the Louve. We did not go inside the museum as that would have taken too long.

Amanda was the one to leave her rain jacket in the flat back in England, so she bought an umbrella.

This guy really wants that bird off his head.

We walked across this bridge.

The kids had macarons from Laduree who first invented them.

Kate, Kairi, and Wesley's hand with macarons.

Kairi walking in Paris.

Kate, Chris, Kairi, and Wesley eating crepes in Paris.

Let's add Amanda and the server too.

Chris, Wesley, Kate, Kairi

Amanda and Kairi with the Arc de Triomphe in the far distance between the trees.

And here are a lot of pictures of the Eiffel Tower. This year in France, they are going to host the 2024 Olympics, so we were lucky to see the Olympics symbol up on the Eiffel Tower.

Kairi and Eiffel Tower. The symbol is on the other side.

The Eiffel Tower. The only drawback to the Olympics being there is that they were blocking off the normal spot where you can stand to take a picture of the tower. It currently holds a lot of bleachers. We had to work around a large fence.

Kate, Chris, Kairi, Amanda at the Eiffel Tower.

Chris, Kairi, and Wesley beside the Eiffel Tower (not pictured).

Here you can see the Olympic Rings on the Eiffel Tower.

Amanda, Wesley, Kairi at the Eiffel Tower with Olympic rings.

There was a crowd.

Had to toss in a picture of Wesley!

Here are crazy people straddling the white line on the road to get a picture of the Eiffel tower while cars drove past them trying not to smash them over.

Amanda and Chris at the Eiffel Tower.

From there we walked to the Sacred Heart Cathedral.

The Sacred Heart Cathedral from across the road.

The Sacred Heart Cathedral with Paris 2024 stair paint ready for the Olympics crowd.

Kate and Kairi

Amanda, Kairi, and Kate

They had a ton of railings with locks on them. We think the locks are supposed to symbolize love? In any case, you could buy one from a street vendor if you wanted to. We only took pictures.

The view from the Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Wesley and Chris inside.

More of the inside.

A dome inside.

This Cathedral was one of the locations for filming Harry Potter.

A brief movie of the inside.

June 11th

On this day we took about 15,825 steps. It was still a lot, but not as many as the day before. We got to see the Roman Bath, Bath Abbey, Castle Combe Town, and then Thornbury Castle.

First we took the subway back to the airport.

This was a movie poster that was up everywhere. Kate did not like it. So, it must be posted here for the memories. :P

We got a rental car from the airport so we went adventuring to farther away places.

Chris, Kairi, and Amanda in the car.

We parked the car somewhere and took another double-Decker bus to arrive in Bath.

Kairi, Kate, Chris on the bus.

A road in Bath.

The Roman Bath since around 400 BC. There was more to look at than just this one bath chamber. There was an audio guided tour and museum that walked people through Roman life and culture. Then there were many other bathing chambers separated by gender so that people could get snacks, get oiled down and dirt slicked off, get massages, pay coins to the goddess, exercise, and cool down.

Roman Bath side view.

Amanda and Chris at the Roman Bath.

Here is a chamber where these rocks would be heated and steam rose up between the columns to give the bathers a spa room.

The Bath Abbey

A dome in Bath Abbey

Bath Abbey

Stained glass windows and tombstones.

The roof.

Kairi and Kate beside a small door. If you look down, you can see an even smaller open door by the stairs.

Chris at the abbey.

Amanda and Kairi at the abbey.

Kate in the abbey.

The outside of Bath Abbey.

Movie time!

Next we went to Castle Combe Town one of the best preserved old towns in the area. Getting to it required driving on narrow roads that held one car but two way traffic. It was not the best thing ever. Amanda was scared of some of those roads as you will find out later at the end of this post.

Kairi, Wesley, Chris, and Kate in Castle Combe.

The street

Kate, Kairi, Chris, Wesley on the street.

Kairi by a house.

Kate, Chris, Wesley, and Kairi on a bridge.

The center of the town.

There was a church here with a cemetery off to the left.

Some of the old tombs had cracks in them and lids rising off. Spooky!

Chris looking up at the top of the church.

Have a 360 view!

Flowers on the houses.

Thornbury Castle was our next stop. Only Chris knew we were arriving, so it was a large surprise that we got to spend a night in a castle!

The entrance to the castle.

Chris by the water fountain.

Wesley, Kairi, and Kate by the fountain.

Not every part of the castle was still in use.

We had two rooms because we needed to fit 5 people, and between the rooms we had fun stairs.

We also had old keys and doors with keyholes you could look right through.

The keyhole.

Wesley, Kairi, and Kate at check-in.

Room number one.

Another view of the king bed and curtains.

Room number two. This one had two twin beds that we pushed together because the other room had the extra beds in it which the kids were sleeping in. Chris and Amanda had a bed all to themselves. Kairi and Kate both slept on the curtained bed even if they could have slept on a pullout bed.

We explored the castle some.

A dining hall.

A reading window.

The library.

A hallway not near us. This led to a really long twisting staircase, and we were glad not to haul luggage up those steps!

The Thornbury Castle at night.

Chris by the entry way leading to our rooms.

Kairi in the curtain bed.

Amanda looking through a folded mirror on the desk.

Part of the garden grounds.

Chris and the roses.

Chris and the bushman.

Our breakfast area.

All of us at breakfast. Chris and Kate went with a traditional English breakfast which included blood pudding that tasted like meatloaf, egg, sausage, ham, and hashbrowns. Wesley got pancakes. Kairi got an English muffin with egg, and Amanda tried a salmon, egg, spinach, dish.

Movie! Movie!

June 12th

On this day we took about 14,674 steps. Our main excitement included Burton on the Water (this is a town name), and reaching York.

The first place we tried to go was Gloucester Castle, but there was a school group inside, so we couldn't go in. It would have been fun, because that was where they filmed the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter scenes. We did get to see the outside.

Us about to be blocked from entering.

The top.

A side in the back.

The view from the grass in the back.

Kate and Kairi in the back.

Amanda

Chris, Kate, Wesley, and Kairi walking through the town where Gloucester Castle is located.

They even had a cafe for Mister!

Burton on the Water is fun town to walk through. We got some fresh made ice cream there after coming off a bridge from a man who was rather good at selling it.

Here is Kairi with her ice cream. Funny enough, they get a lot of dogs here, and they serve dog ice cream too.

The pathway toward the town.

Shenanigans.

Kate on a bridge.

The shops.

You'll see more of it in this movie!

Amanda in the Model Village of Burton on the Water.

Since we had driven here, we checked out of the flat in London, and drove into the town of York, where we rented an air BNB.

The front door looked like this.

And like this.

The kitchen area looked like this. It took us a while to figure out how to turn the oven on to make a pizza since there was a switch inside a cupboard that had shut the whole thing off.

The sofa turned into a bed for the girls.

Wesley had a room and door to himself. Chris and Amanda shared a similar room.

Then there were the steep mountain stairs! Just look at how it joins at the top between the bathroom and Wesley's room on the left, and the parent room on the right.

Needless to say, we were careful walking on this in the dark!

The kids wanted some down time, so Chris and Amanda walked around York without them for a while. Here are some images of York!

The River Ouse, probably.

A store with a great name.

Church place. There were so many of them! We counted about 5 on a half hour walk.

Umbrella alley. June is pride month, so there were these and little flags around.

Some flags strung between buildings.

Street views.

Whatever this is, it is fancy.

Amanda found this junction between two old styles of building interesting.

This collects mail.

York Minister!

York Minister again.

A fancy bridge railing.

Amanda by the river.

The York Tower.

Chris and Amanda went up the steep part, but there were stairs on the other side. A cool story with this is that they took the stairs going back down and it just so happened to be that a Ghost Walk Tour was happening at the same time. They sat and listened to a story of how no one would come into the tower for 600 years because residents claimed it was haunted by a man who had been hanged there. On a stormy night, one brave man went up and shut a window which had been the cause of the howling noise. The storyteller was rather animated and made it sound so much more intriguing (and gory) than that.

June 13th

On this day we took about 15,589 steps, and were in York and drove 2 hours to Alnwick Castle.

We all went to The Hole in Wand, which is a mini-golf course inside this store. It was a rather hard course. Every single shot was uphill in such a way that you simply had to get lucky to even make it in. Our best was a hole in 2-3. Our worst was forever.

The hole is in the cauldron.

It was a wizard themed location, so here is Kairi in a portal.

Our prize for completing the course was sugar free soda/pop that swirled with magical mist. This meant that Amanda could have it too. Yippee!

Some more potion options.

Alnwick Castle was another filming location for Harry Potter. Chris said that the hallway lead out to Hagrid's Hut.

Tunnel used in the film.

Side of the castle.

A cannon.

Walking up to the castle.

Chris and a horse statue.

They had this event arena, but we spent our time walking through a dragon adventure. Sadly, no pictures were allowed, but we did manage to escape the dragons that appeared on movie screens around us, and didn't have much trouble with the mirror maze.

Let her out!

We did get put in prison though.

There was a special exhibit about the Lions and Roses that also did not allow pictures, but we walked through that and skimmed over the war that the castle survived.

We were able to take broom flying lessons here and boy! We all got really good at flying in a half hour.

We even had some visitors in the form of ducks. They showed us up pretty well when they flew over the walls. We never got that far.

Setting up the brooms.

Kate and Kairi line up.

Kate can fly!

Wesley flew too.

Amanda caught some air.

Kairi was born ready.

Chris was the master of levitating his broom up to his hand.

Amanda tried to be a close second.

Kairi was better.

Kate can prove our new found powers.

Chris and Amanda took a walk on the York walls after we got back from Alnwick Castle. It was a little drizzly but not too bad.

A section of the wall with only one side to keep you on.

Chris on the wall walk.

There are two sides to this part, but only because there is a house built right up to it. There is a section of the city with the wall knocked out because of expansion.

Here is an exit/entrance to the walls.

Here is another entrance/exit to the walls.

Some parts had larger round platforms.

Chris

If you look closely we found not prison graffiti but game graffiti on the stone slab. I'm not sure what game it is exactly.

York Wall.

You know a movie is coming right?

Chris walks on the walls. He's got a new way to walk.

Part of the wall that is part of the road.

A view from the wall.

June 14 (End of the vacation)

This was our last day of vacation. We only got about 6,627 steps in. I know! It's a full 14,668 difference from our largest walking day. We went on a Chocolate tour and saw York's Chocolate Story. Did you know that they invented the KitKat in 1935? Well they did. They made a bunch of other things back in the day, but mostly make KitKats now since they became so popular. Don't get too excited though. KitKat came to the United States in the 1960s but with a different recipe and wrapper because the recipe was sold to Hershey. They also created name brands like Black Magic, Aero, Polo, and Dairy Box, and Smarties.

Our tour included a movie about chocolate starting from the Aztec days hunting for cocoa beans. We got to sample cocoa water, cocoa nibs, and chocolate.

To get to our tour, we first walked down this street which was the inspiration for Diagon Alley!

As you can tell, it now has a shop called "He who must not be named."

Chris, Kairi, and Kate, on the "real" Diagon alley.

A closer view of the shop.

We never did figure out what this line was waiting for. Maybe one of the ghost tours? They had an office nearby.

Here is what the shop used to look like where kitkats were invented. It was made by Rowntree and Sons. This is just a facade of the front of the store on the tour.