Harry Potter's Diagon Alley now On Google's Street View Programme
The must visit alley for wizards, Diagon Alley, is now no longer out of bounds for a muggle. With the help of Google Maps' Street View programme, the muggle can explore the famous cobbled street and the shops that sell wizards' items meant for Hogwarts.
In the J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, the muggle, a person with no magical skills or abilities, has no access to Diagon Alley as it is not visible to commoners. But, Google has changed all that in the virtual world by adding the Diagon Alley on its Street View Programme.
Google Maps with Street View enables exploration of places around the world through 360-degree street-level imagery, according to Google. The user of this Web application can explore world landmarks, view natural wonders, navigate a trip, go inside restaurants and small businesses as well as browse the gallery to see collections from around the world and more.
The Diagon Alley on Google's Stree View is the movie set at Warner Bros Studios in London. The set took three months to build. According to The Telegraph, it took nearly six months to create more than 20,000 products to fill the shelves of Diagon Alley shops. The Diagon Alley scenes in all the eight Harry Potter movies were shot at the location.
Warner Brothers opened the doors of the studio to public on March 31, 2012, saying that visitors now have an opportunity to go behind-the-scenes and see many things the camera never showed, from breathtakingly detailed sets to stunning costumes, props and animatronics.
The muggle can explore the alley by searching for Warner Bros. Studio Tour London, Studio Tour Drive, Leavesden, Hertfordshire WD25 7LS.
Description of Harry Potter's first visit to Diagon Alley as cited in Harry Potter Wiki: " There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon...."