Meet the Pied Piper of Hamlyn
For a town so famous for the legend of the Pied Piper, only 5 per cent of Hamlyn's 60,000 population depends on tourism for a living.
But that still means 3 million tourists on day trips each year, and another 100,000 who stay overnight. Large employers include Beamten Heimstatten Werk or the German Building Society, the insurance and real estate firm which hires 3,000 local employees.
The cobbled streets of the carefully preserved and nurtured town centre are splattered with what at first glance seems like small white patchs of whitewash. Closer inspection reveals that they are supposed to be rats weaving through the path taken by the Pied Piper, and later of course the children, to the banks of the Weser, which flows quietly past the town.
Other tourist attractions include musical street plays depicting how Hamlyn lost its children.