What an adventure. I decided on having a self-directed Harry Potter film site adventure tour. I met a fellow and some of his friends on a bus in the UK in June, who informed me that there’s a cheap train to Scotland from London. I absolutely hadn’t been planning on going to Scotland, but I was enticed by this stranger (let’s be real; it doesn’t take much to persuade me to say yes to an adventure). I booked a ticket, and off I went.

I’d already been staying within walking distance away from King’s Cross station, which has a gift shop with a mountain piled high with violet and gold colored boxes of chocolate frogs, just next to the iconic Platform 9 3/4.

Upon doing some research, I learned that the Hogwarts Express is, in fact, a real train. However, its actual name is the Jacobite. Naturally, I wanted to ride the train. However, since this adventure occurred in complete spontaneity and I didn’t book the tickets in months in advance, as is necessary to ensure a seat for yourself, this wasn’t an option. The next best plan to get up close and personal with this train was to do the hike to a viewpoint of the train going over the bridge. It turned out to be one of the most striking and incredible hikes I’ve ever done in my life. The hike itself wasn’t particularly long, but I’d left the Scottish highlands and had an especially difficult choice to make between visiting Loch Ness and spending a wonderfully warm, sunny day at the lake, or going to see the Jacobite and venturing onwards. I chose the hike to the train. The train only came a handful of times a day, and seeing as it was the last train of the day, I couldn’t let myself miss it. I was rushing. I started running down the trail through tall grass and flowers that obscured my vision of anything but the path before me. I sprinted. I started jogging at a steady clip; I only had so much time before I missed the window of opportunity to see the train, and I wasn’t certain exactly how long the hike went on for. Then, all of a sudden, the path opened up into a clearing, revealing one of the most stunning landscapes I’ve encountered on a hike. There were vistas cast in golden sunlight and mountains with the sweeping green of all of June’s growth. I was taken aback. I couldn’t completely stop to appreciate it without risking missing the thing I’d come to see, but as I slowed to a jog, I stared in awe. Picturesque hardly captures the beauty before me. I snapped a couple of photos and finished the hike and made it to the viewpoint just in time to pull out my chocolate frog from my backpack and sit and wait for the train to pass over the bridge. I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that the frog is solid chocolate, and also that I had a little bit of time to spare before the train’s arrival. It finally came over the bridge, and it was just like in the movie.

On my way back, I took my time, leisurely basking in the beauty, really taking it all in, in a state of appreciation and bewilderment.

Once I returned to London some time later, I learned that some scenes in Hogwarts were filmed in Gloucester Cathedral, which was a bit of a train ride outside of London. Once again, I found myself booking a train ticket and clambering aboard to a place I’d never been. I only arrived at Gloucester a short while before the cathedral closed, but it was just enough time to marvel at the architecture and feel connected to the film. I stayed until closing time, taking everything in until it was time to get going.

I then left the cathedral and stepped back into the sunshine and managed to get myself back to the train station and on a train with the intention of returning back to London and calling it a day. What happened instead, however, was that I accidentally got on a train going in the opposite direction, which means I ended up in Wales. I got to explain to my temporary flatmate who asked where I had been all day once I finally got on the correct train and returned to London how I accidentally ended up in a different country.