Doing the Potter Trail in Edinburgh

So, if you have been reading me for a while, you’d know that I’m a bit of a Harry Potter geek… OK, more like a crazily obsessed, slightly delusional, midnight-book-release-and-premiere-waiter kind of geek, but that was during my hard-core years. However, even though my Potter obsession has toned down a little bit since middle school, I am still fond of Rowling’s universe. Therefore, when I decided that my first stop in this trip will be Edinburgh, I immediately knew that I was going on the Potter trail.

What’s the Potter Trail?

The Potter Trail is a tour organized by locals with the purpose of showing fans the places in Edinburgh that inspired the book series.

You don’t have to know this if you are not a Potter connoisseur, but J.K. Rowling live in Edinburgh while she wrote the novels and there are tons of references around the city’s Old Town. The walking tour takes you to places Rowling used to visit, shows you spots that inspired some scenes and characters in the book and even tells you a bit about the real witches and wizard of medieval Edinburgh.

Also, the guides are quite the experts, so they give you tons of information and fun facts about Harry’s Universe. Basically, it’s like paradise for any Potterheard. Also, wanna know the best part? The tour is completely free! Tips are encouraged at the end of the journey, though, but they are entirely voluntary.

I knew about the existence of the Potter Trail since my first visit to Edinburgh in 2012, but back then I was travelling with two of my girlfriends and they weren’t so keen on spending almost two hours of our day trip to the Scottish capital playing the witches. Majority ruled and I accepted it.

But since I’m travelling solo now, I can pretty much do whatever the hell I want, so first thing in the morning after I arrived, I left the hotel and went on my way to the Potter Trail!

Alohomora!

After some well deserved British tea, I took my camera and headed to Greyfriars Bobby Statue, the meeting point where the tour would leave. The days and times of the tour change, according to the season, but you can check out the updates on their website, which is quite clear and easy to navigate.

It wasn’t hard to find the departure point, since Greyfriars Bobby is quite a popular attraction by itself (is the statue of this dog that guarded his masters grave for fourteen years. Apparently it’s good luck to rub its nose). Also, the place is filled with Potterheads, and when you have been in the business for a long time, like me, you can easily spot them among the other standard tourists. But if you still doubt you are in the right place, just look for the eccentric guy in a cloak. That should do it.

So we met our guide, this very amiable Scottish guy (whose name I don’t remember, but I blame the jet lag) who gathered us around him. The group was not very large; we must have been around 15 persons from very different nationalities and ages.

The guide revealed a bunch of plastic wands painted with Hogwarts Houses colours. Well, most of the houses anyway. Apparently, they used to have yellow Hufflepuff wands in the past, but nobody ever wanted them, so they removed them. Which is so sad, because Huffies are awesome!.

He gave the lot of red, blue and green wands to a kid, so he could distribute them among the group. I was super excited to get a blue wand, because, duh, Ravenclaw, obviously. But the child in charge had something else in mind. He came to me and bluntly told me “You look evil!” and gave me a Slytherin wand without leaving room for argument.

I guess I should have been offended, but it actually made me laugh. So I proudly wielded my green one as an honorary member of the Slytherin house (for the day, of course, I’m still an eagle to the core, even if slightly evil).

After we were randomly sorted out to our houses by a six-year-old (I guess the sorting hat was busy that Wednesday), the guide made us learn a special spell. According to him, it had the power to change the colour of the traffic lights if we waited patiently. He made us practice it out loud while we waved our wands. Yeah, a bit cheesy I know, but I tried to think as my thirteen-year-old self and would have probably liked that, so I unapologetically casted the spell with the rest of the group.

Our guide took us inside Greyfriars Kirkyard (that’s graveyard in Scottish). If you think that’s creepy, don’t. Going to Edinburgh, or to Scotland for that matter, without visiting a cemetery is just not worth it. The graveyards are so beautiful and photogenic that you almost forget that you are surrounded by dead people.

In any case, Greyfriars Kirkyad was a huge inspiration for Rowling’s series, since she took some of the names in the graves and used them for some of her most beloved characters. We visited the tomb of a poet named McGonagall, passed next to a Sirius and a Cornelius Fudge and we even had the chance to visit Thomas Riddell’s grave. And no, I didn’t spell it wrong; the grave belongs to the Riddells, not the Riddles. But Mrs Rowling changed the spelling so she could form Voldemort’s anagram with the letters.

The guide told us that sometimes people brings offerings to the tomb: flowers, gifts and love letters from people with strong daddy issues, apparently. We didn’t have the chance to see any, but I still wonder what the deceased Ridells must think of their grave being pampered that way by a bunch of fanatics. I guess I wouldn’t mind.

George Heriot’s School

Inside the kirkyard we also got a peek of George Heriot’s School, which, apparently inspired Hogwarts house system.

George Heriot’s School works now as a private primary and middle school. However, originally, it was actually a school for orphans. Does it ring any bells? Also, the school sorts the children into four different houses, each one with a signature colour: Lauriston (green), Greyfriars (white), Raeburn (red) and Castle (blue). How do they sort their students, I don’t know. But the guide never denied the existence of a magical piece of clothing. Anything is possible in Britain.

At this point of the tour, our guide chose someone from the group to have a mini sorting selection. He even had a sorting hat hidden in his backpack. Obviously he picked a kid, but I doubt his selection were more accurate than the one in Pottermore, anyways (insert offended tone here).

The Rowling’s spots

After the cementery, the guide took us to Edinburgh’s streets. And there we had the chance to use our new spell. During the walk, the guy asked a few questions related to Harry Potter universe. Whoever answered them correctly got some points for the house of choice. And guess who won 30 points for Ravenclaw? You guessed right! This geek girl right here.

I promise I tried to leave room for the kids, but they got most of the answers wrong! Somebody had to do something! Besides, Harry Potter belongs more to my generation than theirs! I regret nothing and you’re welcome.

Our guide leaded us to the Spoon Café Bistro, former Nicholson Café. This is the spot where Rowling first started writing Harry Potter back in the nineties. Don’t let The Elephant House tell you otherwise.

The guide said that the writer’s brother in law owned Nicholson Café back in the day. This way, Rowling was able to get free coffee while she rocked her daughter’s stroller with one hand and write the Potter universe with the other.

He also took us to The Elephant House, which claims to be the “birthplace” of Harry Potter. Don’t get me wrong, J.K. did write a big chunk of the books sitting in their incredibly cosy place. Nevertheless, the place opened in 1995, when the Philosopher’s Stone manuscript was already completed. So it was more the “playground” of Harry rather that his birthplace

However, she spent countless hours in one of the chairs with a view to Edinburgh’s Castle in the late nineties. So it is a Harry Potter home, after all. Besides, their chai is awesome and their toilettes are an attraction by themselves. If you don’t believe me, just have a look:

The tour’s ending

For the grand finale, out guide took us near St Giles Café Bar. There, we got a pretty amazing view of the Balmoral Hotel. It is a beautiful building by itself. But its relevance in the Potter universe lies in the fact that it was the place where J.K. Rowling finished writing the book series.

The author commemorated the success by vandalizing a bust that was in the room. She wrote in the back of Hermes statue the legend: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007”.

Even though graffiting is usually not encouraged in hotels, now the room has doubled its price and it’s advertised as “The Rowling suite”. I still dream with the day I can put my signature on something and make it more valuable… Well, my signature is not that pretty, anyways.

The tour ended in Victoria Street. A long twisted lane that, rumour has it, inspired the beloved Diagon Alley. Although debate is still going on.

As I told you before, the Potter Trail is free of charge. However, I always find it nice to give a tip if I enjoyed the tour. The amount varies, but I added five pounds to the Sorting Hat the guide passed to us. You can also take some pictures with him if you like.

How was it?

I think the overall trail was a pretty cool experience. I don’t feel I’d be suitable if you are not really a Harry Potter fan. You can try it of course, but it’s full of very geeky facts and you need to have some previous knowledge of the universe if you don’t want to get lost in the explanations. But as a Rowling connoisseur, I though it was an amazing way to spend my first morning in Edinburgh.

You get to know other people with the same interests than you, it is budget friendly, you enjoy a nice walk around a popular area of town and you can always, like me, head back to The Elephant House for a cup of tea and some journal writing. (Hey, if I was going to write somewhere in Edinburgh it should be there. There may still be some magical inspiration lingering in the ambiance).