That photo was taken in the small bavarian village Oberstaufen (pop. 7,000). Their marketing people invited Google (and baked cake for them [0]) when the debate about Street View was heating up in Germany. As a consequence Oberstaufen was the only town or village you could visit on Google Street View two weeks before the service launched with all the major cities. Suffice it to say, Oberstaufen received tons of free media coverage because of that.

I think that’s a pretty genius move of the marketing people in a small village in a tourism region.

[0] http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/11/special-preview-o...

Thanks! I did not know that. It's a brilliant move.

Haha, totally. I don't know - I think it's kind of sad. Rural Bavarian life is taken for life in Germany in general... it's plain wrong. I should know, because I live in Germany. I wonder why everyone keeps going back to restricting Germany to that single cliche.

The southern part of a european country is usually the stereotype of the larger nation.

When thinking of the UK the stereotype is the english banker more than the scottish clansmen, for spain is the mediterranean south insted of the atlantic/mountainous north, for italy it's the more noisy&caoithic rome/naples/sicily instead of the mitteleuropeans & industrial milan and turin.

I have no explanation for this though except some pseudohistorical ramblings.

How about the Russians? It can get pretty hot in the south in summer there, but everyone is just depicting Russia in winter.

Another funny thing is that part of European countries that's closer to Switzerland tends to be richer. E.g. the north of Italy, and the south of Britain and Germany. (It doesn't work for Belgium, though.)

Because the other cliché is even less political correct.

(And I am German, but don't live there any longer.)

Strange enough, I passed an Alphorn concert in a Berlin park the other day. Berlin is very far away from the Alps.