St. Paul's Cathedral | behind the scenes access

Geometric Staircase at St. Paul's Cathedral (c) 2016 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

Today's visit to St. Paul's Cathedral was the highlight of my entire trip. St. Paul's, the largest church in London, is famous for having hosted the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana — but perhaps even more famous for being the location of scenes from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Pictured above is the Geometric Staircase that students climbed to their Divination classroom in the Hogwarts tower. The staircase is roped off, and visitors to St. Paul's are not permitted to climb to the top.

But with our special access, we climbed the staircase, viewed the sanctuary from high above the entrance, saw the wooden model that Christopher Wren constructed of his not-yet-constructed cathedral, and visited the cathedral's library filled with thousands of ancient, leather bound volumes. Had we more time, we could even have ascended the famous dome.

Behind-the-scenes access transformed our visit to St. Paul's (worthwhile in itself) into an unforgettable travel experience.

copyright  (c)  2016 by David Ourisman LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.