Have you ever been to or visited a Star Wars location shooting place ?

Not necessarily on purpose, but have you ?

That is to say mainly :

- Tozeur, Matmata, Nefta, Star Wars Canyon, Chott-el-Djerid, Tataouine or Djerba Island in Tunisia

- Crescent City forest CA, Death Valley NV or Buttercup Valley AZ in the US

- Tijcal National Park in Guatemala

- Finse in Norway (most tricky I guess !)

- Caserta and Coma Lake in Italy

Or other I don't recall of ?

How did you find it and did you like it ?

For me I went 9 years ago to the area of Chott-El Djerid (Nefta, Tozeur, Matmata) in south Tunisia for a 4 days small trip.
Really awesome landscape, kind of otherworldly, especially old Berbères underground and cave dwellings (interiors of the Lars farm) and Chott-El-Djerid by itself (dry salt lake). There was only Uncle Owen's farm exteriors missing in the desert !!! So sad.

 

The only location I've been to is the Plaza de Espana in Seville (Sevilla), which was used in AOTC (the big plaza Anakin and Padmé are strolling around after their arrival on Naboo). I visited in 1997, three years before they filmed there. A lot of Seville is Naboo-like, even though most of the Naboo scenes were shot in Italy.

--MissPadme

 

Yeah, I remembered this one, but couldn't recall the name (wasn't even sure it was in Sevilla) to put it in the list.

Most beautiful place and awesome ancient architecture.

 

I was in Milano a few years back, and decided to take a train to Lake Como. Beautiful place, and the ferries take you directly from the town center to Villa Balbianello, which was Padme's retreat in Episode II. Plenty of movies have filmed there since Lucas made it known to the world.

Casino Royale was actually shooting there the day after I visited.

And of course I've been to Hoth.
It's actually easy to get to. Trains take you there from either Oslo or Bergen, and it's just 4 hours from each city.

 

Coma Lake is indeed a truly wonderful site.

Just learned you are Norwegian !

Yeah I know Finse is not that difficult to reach at all. I'm currently reading The Making of Empire Strikes Back...
Just mentioned "most tricky" because it's a little high in the mountain, no ?

 

Visiting Villa Balbianello is on my bucket list. So is visiting Caserta, where palace scenes were shot for TPM and AOTC. I have to get my picture taken by the window, looking forlorn just like Queen Amidala .

I can live without visiting "Hoth" though .

--MissPadme

 

I have a picture of my girlfriend on the Balbianello veranda, doing the Anakin meditation pose.

I actually grew up by the Western fjords, just a 2 hour train ride away.

It's about 1300 metres above sea level. Very nice in the summer, when the snow is gone and the wheather's warm. In the winter it can be pretty harsh. But if you ever go there, you might not want to stumble about in a blizzard like Mark Hamill, but stay indoors and drink wine like Carrie Fisher.

Definitely looks like a different planet, though.

 

Wow !

Striking resemblance...Really stunning.

 

I'm going to slide this one in even though it's not Star Wars but it came from the same guy!

In 2007, while on a road trip with my brother and Dad, we were driving through southern Colorado. As we passed through the town of Antonito, CO, I was just looking out the window as we passed a street and I had a major case of deja-vu! I asked my Dad to turn around and he did. We pulled up and stopped. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos not 100% sure if I knew what I was looking at. After a few moments my brother needed to know what the heck I was doing and I told him that I was pretty sure that the house we were standing in front of was the boyhood home of Indiana Jones (from the Last Crusade). Being my older brother, he gave me all kinds of hell over this. (Keep in mind that I was 33 at the time but it felt like we were kids again!) I snapped the photos and continued on our way. After the trip was over I uploaded the photos. Now I'm positive I knew what I was talking about.

http://tinyurl.com/IndysHouse

http://tinyurl.com/IndysHouse2

 

It hardly counts, but I worked at Fox Studios last year, actually went through Rinzler's Making of ROTS to determine which scenes were shot in which studios & did a little tour.

Not exactly thrilling, there wasn't a trace of anything remotely Star Wars related still there, but it was pretty cool to think that I was working metres away from where Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker fought the legendary Duel itself.

 

Down under, you're really far away from any location shooting site !