""Now, the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank"

I look back on this day and it still overwhelms me.

On the agenda for the trip from the beginning was to do something "Harry Potter". Angela and Caroline are big fans of the books and the movies.

We discover that the remainder of the world remains fans also. Tickets to tours and events sold out quickly. Betty managed to get four tickets for the Warner Bros. London Studio Tour. The bus leaves at 18:30 (4:30 PM) from the tour office in London. It will be about a hour and half drive from London to the studio. The studio is twenty miles from the edge of London near Watford. The time will be spent in rush hour traffic.

We are out early. It is Thursday. We leave Saturday. The agenda is the Tower of London. We still have access with our London Pass. We take the Tube to Westminster Abbey. It is a short walk to the Thames boats docks.

There are a number of tour boats and also a commuter boat service (your Oyster Card is valid). Our London Pass includes the "City Cruise" line. All the tour boats are covered. They have outside seating which I am sure is lovely on a sunny July day. Today, we are very happy there is amble indoor seating. The cover is clear fiberglass with a clear view of both sides of the Thames.

For the tourist, London can be divided into two parts. I will name them Tudor and Parliament. The focal of the Parliament is Westminster Abbey and across the bridge Parliament. It is the parks, the palaces, the government, social, museums and shopping. By staying in Parliament, you have visited London.

The Tudor is down river towards the Atlantic. It is different. You have the Tower Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, The Old Bailey, the Tower of London, The Globe and Greenwich. The area includes many of the newer expensive housing created from river warehouses, wharfs and docks along the Thames. I call it Tudor because the focal is the Tower of London.

The Tower of London is actually a castle. The beginning is with William the Conqueror in 1078. The castle/fortress not only protected London from foreign enemies and controlled river commerce, but also protected rulers from unruly nobles and from the London mobs (you never think of the English as unruly, but the kings of England lived in fear of the London populace as the French kings feared the mobs of Paris).

It is during the reign of the Tudors - Henry VIII and Elizabeth I that the Tower gained its reputation as prison and for execution.

Touring the Castle, museums and the Crown Jewels, takes about 2 hours. It involves a lot of walking and reading. For example, you learn the Tower was successfully overrun by a London Mob. The Tower was a informal zoo as a depository of animal gifts to royalty. Monkeys, lions, snakes and other exotic animals had the run of the place.

The zoo ended with the efforts of the Duke of Wellington who was a director and founding member of the London Zoo. The Duke made the Tower again a military barracks.

The weather has turned wetter and colder. We take the cruise boat back to Westminster Abbey dock. It is about 1:30. We had a quick lunch. London does not do lunches well.

It must be the cost of commercial real estate. Quick restaurants have little seating. Pret a Manger has got to be the largest chain. The sandwiches, pies and deserts are good and the choice is great, but a place to seat is impossible. You can be left standing and eating.

After disembarking, we take the Tube to the station near the Tour Office. It is early so we decide to visit the Royal Mews. "Mews" means "Stables". The Royal Mews is open to the public and actually a great and interesting to spend an hour or two. It is still very much still in use. You can view both historical carriages and current carriages used by the royal family and its member.

After the tour, we begin to look the tour office. We need to arrive early since we ordered the tickets online and there may be some confusion. We have the address and map. We are almost confident. In Europe with its mixture of old, outdated and new, it easy to become lost even with an address and map. In London, this is more true.

London has some of the best and worse examples of architecture in the world. The new construction in London tends to be innovative and trend setting - with nicknames like "loaf of bread", "the toaster" and "beehive'. On the other side, you have Christopher Wren. In between, you have functional ugly.

It is the period of the fifties and early sixties. London needed to be rebuilt. The damage done to London by Germany in WWII was much more extensive than I knew. The British economy was in shambles. So low cost construction - both methods and materials - was the answer to quick occupancy. There was a general irreverence to historical buildings and preservation of heritage. It is always easier to demolition.

The tour office are located inside a commercial office mall. It takes some time, but we resolve the confusion and we board the tour company's double decker bus. There are light, intermediate showers so we are in the inside lower level. It is a full bus and is not comfortable seating.

The windows fog up as we pass through the city at about five miles an hour. Drivers in London are very talented aggressive drivers. As a pedestrian, I actually feel safer in Paris and Rome. First, I know what direction the vehicles are coming from. Secondly, They only want to scare you. London drivers want to hit you - only slightly granted. In London, there appears to be no rules.

London has no freeways. There are no express lanes. There are only a few major routes out of the city and access streets to those large streets are complex and limited.

About 18;30 (6:30 PM), we arrive the Warner Bros Studio complex. The building in front of the parking area is devoted to "Harry Potter". This is not a studio tour. It is an industry. It is somewhat like the Universal Tour in LA. But with only one movie as its theme.

There are a lot of tour groups even at this evening hour. It is an all day event. The tour at your own pace is about two hours. It is an enjoyable and informative two hours.

My thought after viewing the sets, the costumes and art is that these are very talented people and that movies will not be made this way in the future. These artists are losing their profession.

Much of Harry Potter movie sets were actually created. The actors moved in three dimension. The camera moved over an actual "Hogwarts". Granted it was a model "Hogwarts", but a very large and very detailed model.

Artists applied extensive robotics and makeup to create a giant. An artist actually painted all the paintings on the walls. There is train.

Now, there is CGI. Now, actors act in a void against a green screen. Actors voice over the computer generated giants. I am confident that there was use of "green screen" with Harry Potter. But, there was also "things".  I doubt that if studios wanted to they could not have a tour of the "Avengers"movie sets. A ride, definitely. I like this better than a ride.

We all note that the movie world is 7/8 scale. It is a smaller world actors look bigger, Actors, in general, are not big people. It does have to do with what the camera sees and how it sees it.

We finish at the cafeteria. We are hungry. I try the "butter beer". Not bad, but once in a lifetime.

Last bus is 21:00 (9:00 PM). I am worried about seating. No problem. The drive back to London seems almost as slow, but I am sure it is our fatigue. The bus has a pre-designated stop for a group to access their hotel. The kids take the initiative. We exit and take the Tube back to the apartment.

I am exhausted. Tomorrow - the British Museum and the British Library.