Hobbiton Movie Set

On December 4, 2018, I went to Matamata, a small town near Hamilton, and booked a tour of the Hobbiton Movie Set for the next day.

The Hobbiton Movie Set was very important for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and for the Hobbiton movies.

It was created in 1978 on the Alexander family farm and is surrounded by 13,000 sheep.

At the beginning of my tour, I was a bit skeptical because I thought $85 for a two-hour tour was quite expensive, but I must say it was worth it.

During the tour, I learned many new behind-the-scenes information about the film and the filming process. For example, there are doors of different sizes and Gandalf was filmed in front of small doors to make him appear larger, while Bilbo was filmed in front of larger doors.

Or that flyers were distributed in Matamata for Bilbo's birthday party to find the perfect Hobbits and ultimately over 100 residents of Matamata were found as ideal Hobbits.

I was impressed by the fine craftsmanship and the fact that each door looked different.

Unfortunately, you cannot go inside the hobbit holes because the indoor scenes were filmed at a different location.

However, you can visit the Green Dragon, the pub of the Shire, which looks like it does in the movie.

The most impressive thing for me was not the individual doors, but the experience of seeing a real film set that was not only erected for a short time and then dismantled, but also a film set that is located in nature and adapted to it and its surroundings.