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...