A visit to the Hobbiton movie set. A bit touristy, but a really beautiful spot and they are very organized, so the separate groups do not run into each other much. There are two sizes of hobbit hole: large and small, depending on whether they wanted the person in the shot to look large (man sized) or small (hobbit sized). As the guide explained, Peter Jackson used a lot of "forced perspective" to create the relative sizes: Frodo looks like he was standing next to Gandalf, but in fact he was a bit behind to create the illusion of the size difference. The doors to the hobbit holes do open, but there is only ~1m behind them: all the interior shots were done in the studio.

We didn't see any hobbits, though. But according to the book, hobbits are very good at not being seen so maybe we just missed them. And there were no amazing dragon fireworks, either, but maybe those only happen at night!