Hobbiton
One of the most known export products of the last decade is the movie trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings. Aside from the three movies made from Tolkien's TLOTR trilogy, sir Peter also made a trilogy from the small children's book the hobbit. Although it is debatable whether or not it is bad, because I am such a big fan I could not care less!
The story behind hobbiton speaks a lot of how crazy some people were about the lord of the rings. As you can image during filming of the movies nobody was to know about what was going on at the remote farm near the small village of Matamata. The movie was filmed there, with some clear deals (keep your mouths shut!) between the owners of the farm and the producers of the movie. The shire, the location filmed, was mostly a flat landscape with a lot of green and nice and happy farmers. Matamata was perfect to film this, but there were some small hills in the far back of the area. Most of this was deleted from the back scenery of the movie, except in a few shots the hills were still shown (not a mistake, it just looked good). The locals immediately recognized the hills and used the few shots to deduct where the farm was located. Within no time hobbiton was swarmed with fans!
Although the movie set was not to be a permanent setup, the producers and the farmers must have smelled some money, so they turned the makeshift hobbiton into a permanent tourist attraction. Nowadays thousands and thousands of people pay quite the sum of money to have a guided tour through this farmland. At the end of the trip you can actually go into the Green Dragon tavern to get a specially brewed beer!
'Cause the only brew for the brave and true, comes from the Green Dragon!'