Harry Potter: From Diagon Alley to Glenfinnan

Harry's wizarding life starts with shopping: Hagrid brings him to Diagon Alley for school supplies, and the film found its street in the City of London. Leadenhall Market stood in for the area around the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley, and the entrance was an empty shop at 4 Bull's Head Passage, later an optician's, now a coffee house. The market is still a working covered market on Gracechurch Street.

Visitor guidance: A working market, typically open weekdays; the passage entrance is inside the market off Gracechurch Street.

Every school year starts here: in the books King's Cross is the departure point of the Hogwarts Express, boarded from secret Platform 9 3/4 through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. The films cheated — the wall is the arches between platforms 4 and 5, and every exterior is St Pancras, used while building works hid King's Cross. The station returned for the second film, and earned its sign, trolley and themed shop.

Visitor guidance: Photo spot with trolley and themed shop inside the station; the film exteriors show St Pancras station.

Oxford plays Hogwarts' interiors, and Christ Church gives the grandest: its staircase is where McGonagall meets Harry, Ron and Hermione in the famous entrance scene, leading up to the Tudor dining hall that inspired the Great Hall. The college hallways play the corridor where Hermione shows Harry the Quidditch trophy his father won, and its rooms served as the trophy room. Almost half a million tourists a year come to see it.

Visitor guidance: The college admits almost half a million tourists a year; check its site for visiting hours and tour times.

The Bodleian's Divinity School, with its gothic vaulted ceiling, became the Hogwarts infirmary: Harry wakes here, and Dumbledore tells him the Stone is destroyed. Duke Humfrey's Library next door played the Hogwarts library. The room kept returning in later films — McGonagall teaches dancing here in the fourth film — so this quiet corner of Oxford has more screen time than most actors.

This is the real Hogwarts, twice over: Alnwick stood in for the school in the first two films, chosen with Gloucester Cathedral as the principal location. The Outer Bailey is Madame Hooch's classroom — Harry's first broomstick lesson was filmed here, the one where his flying earns him the Seeker spot. Visitors today can walk the Bailey where he first flew.

Visitor guidance: Open to visitors: explore the Outer Bailey where Harry first learned to fly.

One of the most famous railway shots in family film: the Glenfinnan Viaduct carries the Hogwarts Express, the GWR Olton Hall engine of the films, and appears in four Harry Potter films, earning the nickname the Harry Potter Bridge. Built from 1897 to 1901 for the West Highland Line, it draws huge crowds. Police have warned fans off walking the live line after close calls with trains; admire it from afar.