bag end

I soon found myself standing on the stone doorstep of Bilbo’s home, looking out over the sprawling farm as the wind whistled past my ears and lifted my hair off the back of my neck. It was easy to see why this place was chosen as Hobbiton. From that elevated vantage point, there’s nothing but green as far as the eye can see; no skyscrapers or paved roads interrupt the view – it’s just grass and sheep for miles.

“Over 165,000 people have seen this here view,” Alec said.

He allowed us to stand in silence for another moment, and then motioned for us to pile into Bag End. While the other sixteen hobbit holes on the property are simply wooden fronts, the Bag End exterior actually extends roughly five feet into the hill behind it. The floor – smoother and cleaner than I remembered it from three years before – and the wooden walls were illuminated by a bare bulb hanging above our heads.

“They of course didn’t film inside of this,” Alec said. “All of that was done inside a studio in Wellington.”

“But at least now we can say we’ve been inside Bag End,” Josh said, stooping to peer out one of the small, rounded windows. Denise leaned over his shoulder, poising her camera to snap a picture of the Party Tree, using the round window as a frame.

“It’s like a postcard,” she said, reviewing the photo she’d just taken on her digital camera. “Only better.”