Harry Potter Inspirations, Edinburgh

I had no idea that in coming to Edinburgh I'd come across so many Harry Potter related sites.  I'm a big fan of the books and movies, but I'd always associated them with England.  It was only happenstance that I found out about this - my introvert self becoming bold in my travels and butting into a conversation in Greyfriar's Kirkyard that sounded interesting.

I eventually learned that The Elephant House is where JK Rowling did a lot of her early writing on the novels.  As you can tell by the collage they have posted inside and what they have painted on the window, they are quite proud of this!

I hadn't been planning to go in - or at least not to eat there - but, it WAS lunch time, and  .  .  .

Vegetable Chili on Chips for me, please, oh, and, yes a slice of chocolate cake would be lovely :-)

It's named The Elephant House for good reason!

One of many elephant chairs!

The view looks out on Edinburgh Castle, which seems to me to be a reasonable part of the inspiration for Hogwarts!

It also looks out over Greyfriar's Kirkyard, in which J. K. Rowling used to spend time wandering.  It does contain the grave of Tom Riddle, but I wrote about that another post, which you can find here, along with more (and creepier) pictures of the cemetery (scroll down that previous post a bit).

The building you see over the back wall of the cemetery is Heriot's School, which is said to have been an inspiration for Hogwarts.  Take a look at images of the school below, and see what you think.

This may sound strange, but I was really glad I needed to use the restroom before leaving the restaurant.  When I walked through the door it just about knocked my socks off!  Pictures don't do it justice.  It's like the walls were screaming at me!  And it's such a change from the design of the interior of the dining area!  I wonder if the establishment encouraged this - or just went with it when it happened.

I'm not typically into graffiti, but it just would have been wrong to not leave a mark of my own here, so there are my initials right under the sign of the deathly hallows.