We spent most of Thursday at the Warner Brothers Studio Tour just north of London. The tour is a permanent tribute to the hard work that went into the creation of the eight Harry Potter films, including set pieces, props, costumes, designs, even wigs. It is indescribable and must be seen if you're a fan of the Harry Potter series at all. First, though, I took a picture of Tower Hill station, the Tube stop nearest our flat.

Outside the studio and then inside the lobby...

First stop on the tour was the Great Hall of Hogwarts, naturally, with a lot of details that couldn't be seen in the films.

The boys' dormitory room in Gryffindor. Check out the Chudley Cannons stuff and the trunk marked HP.

Wands for most of the principal characters, from Harry to Voldemort and everyone in between.

The Mirror of Erised.

Gryffindor's Common Room.

Dumbledore's office!

The Potions classroom.

As a former graphic design major, I loved all the things that had been designed for the wizard world -- from cereal boxes to book covers to the Marauders' Map.

After the first building, we took a break and had some butterbeer, then visited the Knight Bus, 4 Privet Drive, Hogwarts' covered bridge, and Godric's Hollow.

The next building had more physical props, including animated ones like the Monster Book of Monsters, Hedwig, and Buckbeak.

Suddenly, DIagon Alley!

More design, including some gorgeous concept art.

These cardstock models were made to mock up sets before full building began.

Turning a corner and coming on this huge scale model of Hogwarts, used for filming all the wide shots in the movies, gave me chills.

Finally, the last room of the tour was full of wandboxes with the names of every single person who had worked on the movies in any way: cast, crew, designers, producers, everyone. Lst of all, we caught a glimpse of Xenophilius Lovegood's printing press.

After coming back from the tour, we decided to go to Piccadilly Circle and have dinner at the Planet Hollywood there, since I had a discount pass.

Sticky toffee pudding (not as good as the one at the World's End) and Chewbacca's bowcaster!