Today, more than 40,000 people live in Buxtehude at the gates of the great Hanseatic city of Hamburg and on the edge of the Alte Land with its magnificent fruit tree blossoms. Buxtehude was given the title of fairytale town through the Brothers’ Grimm story of the hare and the hedgehog. The historic old town is a particular attraction with its alleys, its historic canal and harbour as well as its Brick Gothic buildings and half-timbered houses from the past five centuries.