A weekend in Edinburgh (part 2)

Hey everyone!

In my last post, I told you about our first day in Edinburgh. While writing, I realized that there was so much I wanted to share with you all, so I decided to split our trip up into two separate posts. So, as I promised, here is an inside look of what our second day in Edinburgh looked like.

Since this was our last day, we wanted to make the most of it. We often ended up dividing up into groups because there was just so much that we all wanted to do! I would absolutely love to go back one day to do the things that I didn’t have time for.

We all started our day off by going to The Elephant House for breakfast. Anyone who knows what that place is probably just let out a little squeal of excitement. The Elephant House is a little cafe, and is most famous for being the “birthplace” of Harry Potter. In other words, J.K. Rowling spent a lot of time here writing several of the books!

Now, she didn’t actually start writing Harry Potter here, as the cafe didn’t open until after the first book was released. But the author has confirmed herself that she spent quite a bit of time writing her books in there. It was very cool getting to eat a nice breakfast in the same location where J.K. Rowling was years ago, writing some of the best-selling books ever, sipping a cup of tea or coffee.

After breakfast, we all went out and did a bit more shopping, then we met up to go on a Harry Potter Tour! Edinburgh was a huge inspiration for a lot of the setting held within the books, and for a lot of the character’s names!

We started off in Greyfriar’s graveyard, which, yes, is the same graveyard that we were in the night before when we visited the prison camp and the supposed poltergeist. The place seemed much more friendly in the day time, and we could actually read some of the names on the gravestones. Which is exactly what J.K. Rowling did years back. She has mentioned that she walked through the graveyard often, seeking out ideas for names of the characters she was writing. We saw several names, including the well known Thomas Riddell (She changed the spelling of his last name slightly to fit the story).

One really intriguing landmark that we could spot through from the graveyard in a boarding school called George Heriot’s School, which was the inspiration for Hogwarts. The school even has four different houses, with each of the colors from those houses corresponding to the four houses of Harry Potter. I learned that, as a proud Hufflepuff, the equivalent house at this school for me would be Greyfriars, due to them both being yellow.

Another landmark that you can spot from the graveyard is Edinburgh Castle, which inspired the look of Hogwarts. And apparently, there was a field outside of the castle that very closely resembled what a Quidditch field looked like. Apparently, J.K. Rowling would’ve easily been able to see the castle and the school from out the windows of The Elephant House (which I can confirm), so she had plenty of opportunity to get inspiration from them both!

After the graveyard we visited several locations where she visited nearby, including The Elephant House again. We ended the tour on Victoria Street, which many believe is the inspiration for Diagon Alley. And I’ll admit, it does look very similar! There are even some of the shops that reminded me of the story.

After the tour, I decided to head on over to the National Museum of Scotland. There was a lot to see in there, including the world famous sheep, Dolly, who was the first successful cloned animal. Pretty cool huh?

And that was our weekend in Scotland! I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did, if I’m being honest. But, that was definitely one of the favorite locations that we’ve visited so far. It’ll take a lot of top that trip!

Thanks for reading!