Feasibility of a quick trip to downtown Frankfurt
 

All,

I am flying OSL-FRA-NCE on Friday, and due to a crap summer schedule where the optimal connection was reduced to 25 minutes, and hence is no longer bookable, I will have in excess of 4 hours at the airport.

Is it feasible and/or recommendable to do a quick trip downtown? With the ongoing World Cup it might be more entertaining to get a feel of the atmosphere rather than spending the time in the SEN lounge.

Any tips/tricks for a random tourist? Recommended places to go? How much time to schedule for the trip back to the airport?

Thanks.

Yu can easliy have a couple of hours in FRA. It takes about 15 minutes to the train station, and another 15 for the ride. So ttal max 40 minutes with waiting time.

Feasible?
Yes, Public transport connection search.

Recommandable?
Yes, there are some nice things to see in Frankfurt, have a look a virtualtourist.com.

I suggest you to get off at the station Römer as the first point of interest and then walk to the river in order to get some worldcup-feeling, if you are in FRA during a game.

The train station to look for at FRA is the "Regional Train station" and then take the "S-Bahn". The logo is a white S in a green circle.

The "long distance station" handles the ICE high speed trains.

If you want to get some worldcup feeling, take the S8 or S9 to downtown Frankfurt and get of at "Hauptwache". From there it is a 5 min walk to the "Roemer" (nice place with old houses) and then another 2 min to walk to the Main River. All the matches can be seen from there http://www.wm-frankfurt-2006.de/main...&content_id=70

S-Train to downtown FRA runs every 15 mins and it is a 10 min ride.

This link from the CX homepage might be helpful to get an idea want to visit in FRA (some of the information are useless for you, as you'd need more time).

Cheers
totti

The walk from Hauptwache to the Main (arena) can easily take up 20 minutes if it is full. So I would suggest getting off at Hauptwache and then walk towards the Fressgass. Lots of cafes with TVs and one larger screen in the middle (the quality of that one is not very good though).

And in addition to this (long walk) it is pretty crowded and you can't be sure to get in. A friend I talked to yesterday tried to see the opening match last friday. He arrived 2 hours before the game and was denied to enter because it was overcrowded.

I did this on Monday on an 8-hour layover. Starting from the HON lounge in A, it took me just under an hour to get the World Cup FanSite. That includes the walk to the S-bahn, purchase ticket and waiting for train, train, and walk to the Main river. I was told to stay on the train until Konstablerwache and walk from there. I went back via Romer (got on the U-bahn at Dom/Romer and transferred at Hauptbahnhof). That also took the same length of time to return to the lounge, one hour.

On Monday evening (USA-Czech game) I waited only 5-6 minutes in the Fansite security screening line and there were still a few seats in the stands throughout the game. I am sure it will be much more crowded when the games are more popular. If you cannot get in, you can still see the large TVs from the banks of the Main river and the bridges there. Even if Fansite is full, I think you can go to the official World Cup shopping stand which is outside the Fansite security. There are also some interesting advertising pavillions on the river banks outside the Fansite.

If you have a 4-hour layover and you go out immediately and aim to return to the airport one hour before depature, you will have one hour at the Fansite or nearby according to my experience.

In my opinion it is so interesting that it is worth going over to the Fansite even when you might not get in because of the crowds. You can still see a lot and if you get bored you can always go to one of the other areas nearby (mentioned above) to watch the game.

Charles

It worked. :)

Took S9 into Hauptwache, walked to the river, watched the first half of Netherlands - Ivory Coast on the big screen (how come Germans love Ivory Coast?!), and took the S-bahn back from Konstablerwache. Here things got a bit more stressful than necessary as I didn't read the details of the map, and ended up on the S-1 (oops, it was going to Wiesbaden, but it was the only one to Wiesbaden not going via FRA)... Changed back to the right track at Mainz-Kastel and got into FRA 45 minutes before departure. :)

And it seems like I have the mojo these days. Second Germany-NCE flight in a row I have been op-up'ed on. (I guess being SEN on a B ticket puts me high on the list... ^ )

It's not that we like Ivory Coast but that we'd rather not get warm with the Dutch (in soccer there is a long rivalry between the two nations....at least from my perspective).

cheers
HON_Hunter

Hehe... kind of figured... :) It must be a kind of deep one too cause the cheers when Ivory Coast scored were those of real joy, not the one of "cool, they scored a nice goal...".

That said, there were quite a few dutch fans around and everything was very peaceful. Might have been because the city is pretty much under siege of Polizei though...