I Experienced Harry Potter…

…which is not quite as dirty as that title makes it sound.

The Harry Potter exhibition or also known as the Harry Potter Expo arrived in the Netherlands earlier this year. From the start I knew that my husband and I wanted to go see it. While Maarten might not be very bookish, he does love Harry Potter. But with Merijn and Maarten’s work we just never managed to make time for it. And then the end of the exhibition was coming in sight.

Luckily for us they extended the time to visit until September 2nd which was in Maarten’s first week of Summer vacation. When I heard that I ordered the tickets right away.

So September 1st we hopped in the car, dropped Merijn off at grandpa and drove straight to Utrecht to see the exhibition. I didn’t even realize when I got the tickets it was epilogue day but clearly I have great choosing abbilities.

Beware that this post has a lot of pictures!

When I ordered the tickets I choose the collector’s one. One of the trio and one of the train which of course was for Maarten.

We choose the time slot 10.30-11.00. These timeslots served to make sure that not too many people went in at once. You could stay as long as you wanted once inside.

The introduction started with the sorting hat of course!

In the next room we got some shots from the movies before being allowed into the next room.

In between the scenes and the moving pictures you could see the hogwarts train. It was crowded around that immediately so we went on.

Hermoine’s Items

Ron’s items, and I promptly forgot to take pictures of Harry’s, haha.

Left Dutch, Right English. I thought it was fun to see this comparison.

Some potions items like the school book, wands of Snape and Slughorn, the cauldron etc.

Herbology

Maarten pulling up a mandrake.

Of course I had to sit in Hagrid’s chair!

The Flying Key from the first movie

Ravenclaw!

Spooky! From the cemetary scene in movie 4

Ravenclaw Pride!

Banners from all 4 houses

The wall outside the great hall..

Selfie with the doors

Selfie with Maarten

Fawkes!

Candy!

Dobby

At the start we could get our picture take with some props and at the end of the exhibition you could look at it and choose a background.

This is how our picture turned out!

A lot of the things in the store were super expensive. But besides the photo I did get a Ravenclaw scarf I’ve been wanting for years and a pin!

Overal it was a lot of fun to visit this exhibition. We did go through it rather fast. Quicker than the hour and a half the website gave it. Even so I do think it was worth a visit and fun to see. I don’t think it is something you would visit multiple times though.

Aftwards we went to the Primark and I of course got some more Harry Potter stuff.

This great Marauder’s Map sweater, a ravenclaw notebook and pillow. Totally a Ravenclaw day!

This little card was attached to one of the items and I thought it was cute.