Dear Son is giving DH a trip to Germany for the '06 World Cup games. At present the plan is to focus on semi-finals and quarter-finals, figuring tix for Berlin final game will be exorbitant and the game less interesting.

Since we have no crystal ball as to which teams will play whom or when, all we can do is choose between venues. Since less-than-rabid-soccer fan Cassandra will be going along, DH and DS are willing to include considering the appeal of the host cities in making choices. So please offer your suggestions as to the following choices:

For quarterfinals:
June 30th Berlin or Hamburg
July 1 Frankfurt or Gelsenkirschen

For semifinals:
July 4 Dortmund
July 5 Munich

I know I'll be writing later for help w/logistics, but starting here. Thanks, all.

Berlin, Hamburg and Munich are in my opinion cities which offer quite a lot. While Frankfurt, Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen aren't as bad as their reputation, they don't really qualify as tourist attractions.

On the other hand, Frankfurt is about one hour away from tourist attractions as Heidelberg and the Ruhr cities Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen are easily accessible from a base in the Rhine area. It's also debatable whether a city waiting for a semi-final world cup game is the perfect place for a little bit of quiet sight-seeing. Staying an hour away might be much preferable (and a lot cheaper since the price of hotel rooms will go through the roof).

By the way, judging from the current Euro, there's a good chance that German's out of the cup by the time of quarter finals, so things might be a little bit quieter.

Thanks, Hans -- a pity we can't teleport ourselves between Berlin and Hamburg for the "quarters". (Also sorry Stutgart isn't in there after the "16s.&quot Would happily accept the idea of staying an hour away, and/but we've more or less agreed not to rent a car (for various reasons), so we would need some guidance about staying where we could train in and out of WC territory. What are good options within an hour by train of Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt?

Stuttgart

There are really a lot of options. If the trains run during WC as they do normally, you're for example from Cologne in less than 1:30 in Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund (at the train station, not the stadion). Or you're in less than 1:30 from Stuttgart in Frankfurt. As long as you're staying in large towns, the train connections are fast. Switching trains costs time.

Well, I am still in the mood for the European Championships (having just returned from Lisbon -see my trip report here on Fodors, if interested- and having just watched the Portuguese advance into the finals on TV), but this one make my mouth water already for more (although the level of play usually is better at European Championships than at World Cups due to more class act teams participating).

Residing in Hamburg, I would certainly love to see you visit here. The stadium is one of the prettiest in Germany (currently possibly only beat by the one in Gelsenkirchen) and should provide some great atmosphere.
Hamburg is very much of an outdoor/ summer town and should offer various appealing acvtivities aside from the match like a tour of the busy port (rather interesting to me), sailing or rowing right in the city center on Alster lake, some good musicals and very good restaurants of all ethnic varieties for the evenings. I will gladly provide more info and suggestions should you be interested.

You could stay in medieval Luebeck, which is approx. 45 min. away by train and service is frequent.
Luebeck is quite worthwhile to explore- plus it is very close to the Baltic Sea and some very nice beaches for some relaxation.

Berlin on the other hand is some 2.5 hours away by train, so you could hop over pretty swiftly after the games.

For the semi-finals, my choice would be Munich over Dortmund, which should offer you many more opportunities including some nice side-trip to the Alps. In fact you might very well stay in Austria and come into town for the game in order to avoid the presumably steep hotel prices.

Cheers
hsv

Lots of grief in the cities - look at Portugal now.
M

Really like the idea of staying an hour away or so. Too soon to rule out Germany as participant though, don't you think?

Would love suggestions for towns (with lodging) outside Frankfurt, Munich, and any further suggestions. Thanks so much, Hans and hsv.

Cassandra,

we can all be assured that we will be tortured by the German Team playing, as they are automatically qualified for the tournament being the host nation!

Gotta run, but will be back with a few suggestions

Regards
hsv

We're hoping to go, too. Have begun to look at the cities and am wondering how realistic it is to see a game in, for example, Berlin or Hamburg on a Friday and make it to Frankfort to check in and see a game on Saturday.

Any veterans of these games want to weigh in on how frantic it is to try to go to 2 games in 2 days in 2 cities?

Cassandra, any news or website on how where and when to get tix. We are in Dublin and watched the last world cup games...some were at 7am and it was fantastic. They emptied out the indoor tennis courts in a gym and played it on 2 screens and served brekfast and beer. It was the most fun I had watching a game. We decided to try to go to Germany for the next one and I haven't thought about the logistics at all yet!

soccr,

with screen names like yours and mine, it's almost mandatory to go see the World Cup games, I presume ;-)!

The ticket sale has not yet begun. It will commence by February 1st, 2005, according to the webpage of the German Football Federation, DFB at

http://www.dfb.de/tickets/wm2006/index.html

They have included a link that takes you to this site, and it's my understanding that through this site, you will be able to purchase tickets, once they have started selling them:

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/.

In order to answer your question regarding the possibility to watch two matches in two days, I can't see much of a problem.
Germany is not that big and the infrastructure for traffic is set up pretty well. You almost always have the choice of driving yourself, taking a train and flying, at least if some bigger towns (which the football venues are) are concerned.
Travel time by car between Hamburg and Frankfurt e.g. is somwhat around 4 hours. The train will take you from central station to central station in 3 to 3.5 hours. Flight time is 1 hour.
Basically, there is no distance between cities that is not drivable within one day IMHO, even Hamburg- Munich at a driving time of around 7 to 8 hours is doable.

To refer back to my former promise to Cassandra for lodging options outside Frankfurt (which I had forgotten, shame on me!), I would suggest that you take a look at the Rheingau region and Wiesbaden, which is not too far away and affords some nice scenery along with good hotels. Take a glance at the webapge of

http://www.hrs.de

to get an idea of prices.

For the matches in munich towns like Tegernsee and Rottach Egern might be worth a look at- really nice scenery and a bit outside the city, but still easily driveable. The local team of Bayern Munich always prepare themselves for their homematches there.

Happy planning!
hsv

Cassandra:

I am doing the same thing your are (I created the topic "World Cup 2006 Help).

Two games in two days should not be too much of a problem -- I went from Oita to Shizuoka during the last WC in Japan (about 300 miles) to see games on consecutive nights.

Maybe you can give me some insight on my problem I am shooting for 2 games in the group stage, and then 2 games in either the Round of 16 or the Quarterfinals.