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World Cup 2006 Travel Guide

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Europe : Central Europe : Germany : World Cup 2006
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The FIFA World Cup 2006 [1] was held in Germany between June 9, 2006 and July 9, 2006.

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Contents

Prepare

Tickets

Regular tickets come in four categories (1-4), with category 1 being the best pitchside seats (best views) and category 4 being for those behind the goals (worst views). Prices start from €35 (group games, category 4) and go up to €600 (final, category 1). See the FIFA site for ticket details. The fifth and final ticket sales period started on May 1st, 2006.

Accommodation

Do not fool yourself believing that you will be able to arrive in a city and find accommodation easily. Chances are you will spend several hours searching for accommodation, assuming you can find anything in the first place. Reserve before you depart and always carry a confirmation from the hotel, should they happen to lose your reservation.

Get in

By air

Several options for those flying directly to Germany are Frankfurt am Main (The major hub in Germany), Berlin, or Munich. Each of those cities will host several games or once in you can leave the city and take a train to another host city.

Some travellers may find arriving in another European city a more economical alternative. Occasionally travellers leaving from Philadelphia and flying to Paris and then taking a discount airliner to Frankfurt can save up to several hundred dollars.

By train

Additionally, if you are planning to travel around the continent you may want to check out these other Wikitravel articles:

By bus

Get around

See the Germany article for general details. Deutsche Bahn are running some special deals for World Cup fans. The Weltmeister-Ticket enables you to travel from wherever you are staying in Germany to your match on second class trains, but including the fast ICE trains, as well as night trains with a supplement fee. It is only valid in conjuction with a valid World Cup ticket and costs, depending on the length of the journey, €54 (up to 200 km), €74 (from 201 - 350 km), or €90 (above 351 km) -- note that the prices reflect the years that Germany has won the World Cup. The Weltmeister-Pass is for anyone planning to travel a lot during the World Cup. No World Cup ticket is needed, and it is valid for the five weeks of the World Cup (from 7 June to 11 July 2006). It costs €349 for 2nd class travel and €549 for 1st class for unlimited journeys, including night trains with a supplement fee.

Venues

Marienplatz in Munich.
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Marienplatz in Munich.

The host cities will be Berlin, Leipzig, Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt am Main, Dortmund, Hannover, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Gelsenkirchen.

The official match schedule is available online.[2] All of the first-round matches that will eventually eliminate sixteen of the thirty-two teams are scheduled and set; in addition, the dates, times, and locations of the later-round matches are also listed on the schedule.

Yellowikis has addresses and maps for all the World Cup stadia

Host cities information

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
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Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Buy

World Cup merchandise is already on sale:

  • German flags, face paint
  • GOLEO VI, the loveable lion mascot
  • Official replica soccer ball

Do

If you aren't lucky enough to have tickets to the games, you can still visit Germany during the World Cup for the atmosphere. Germany is already well and truly in WM-Fieber (World Cup fever), and almost all towns and cities in Germany will have public places where they will televise the games live. You could try going to the host cities to be with other fans. Another alternative is to head to where your team is staying and maybe sit in on an open training session. Here's the list of where teams will be based:

Stay Safe

Germany is mostly very safe. However, there is an increasing concern for racism-based hate-attack in Germany, which seems to be raising in the last few months due to the coming World Cup. It is said that the German police are prepared for such things. Nevertheless, try your best to stay safe especially if you are obviously non-Caucasian and do report to the police for any threat as you might save other people.

Important telephone numbers

  • Police: 110
  • Emergency: 112

Get out

  • Visit all the other interesting German cities that are not venues of the World Cup, like Bremen and Dresden
  • Prague, the Czech Republic's capital is easily accessible from Munich.
  • Warsaw, Poland is a several hour train ride from Berlin's Ostbahnhof train station.
  • Brussels can be reached from Cologne in a few hours on a high speed train.
  • Salzburg (city), Austria can be reached from Munich.
  • Basel, Zürich and Bern are easily reachable from Germany by Train in around 2-3 hours (Stuttgart, Munich) or 3-4 hours (Dortmund). In those cities the games of Euro 2008 will be held, so if you like to have a look around the new stadiums in Bern or Basel, they are usually opened for public when there are no games held there.
This is a usable article. It has information for getting in as well as some complete entries for restaurants and hotels. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow!
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