No, you won't find Wolfsburg on the UNESCO World Heritage List, so for a vibrant weekend it is better to go somewhere else. But purely for football, it's a good city, VfL Wolfsburg is a stable club in the Bundesliga and according to us, the Volkswagen Arena is underrated.
If you're driving around the city and are waiting in front of the traffic lights, take a look around. Practically everyone in Wolfsburg is driving a Volkswagen. Not so strange though, because the city was only founded 80 years ago by the Nazis to open the car factory of Volkswagen. Everything in Wolfsburg is Volkswagen, also VfL Wolfsburg. The car brand has been the club's shirt sponsor for many years, they named the stadium after them and they are the sole owner of the club.
From the outside, the Volkswagen Arena, which opened in 2002, looks a bit like a giant office building, or a car showroom. It won't blow the minds of the football romantics away, but if they're playing a game at night the stadium is beautifully lit up. It has a capacity of 30,000, which is perfect for VfL Wolfsburg. From the inside, the arena is surprisingly cool. Even though the shape and design of the stadium are nothing out of the ordinary in Germany (squared and two-tiered), it does have something special. The green seats match the white, tent-like roof, a combination that does perfect justice to the club's colours.
When you cross the Berliner Brücke at the Volkswagen Arena you can't miss it. Across the water lies the old VfL-Stadion am Elsterweg, the home of VfL Wolfsburg until 2002. The stand with seats which surrounds two sides of the stadium is quite special. Fortunately, the stadium has been declared a monument, so it won't be demolished.
Right next to the Volkswagen Arena lies the AOK Stadion, a small but brand-new stadium with a capacity of 5,000. A lot of the youth teams play their home matches here, but more importantly, it's also the home of VfL Wolfsburg's female team, who is one of the best in the world. Some of the biggest stars in women's football play at Wolfsburg. The team even managed to win back-to-back Women's Champions Leagues in 2013 and 2014.
In the main stand of the AOK Stadion, you'll find ‘VfL Fussballwelt’, an interactive museum dedicated to the club. The children can kick a ball and there's a lot to see from the history of VfL Wolfsburg, including some of the trophies the club has won. Our favourite is the shirt wall from the champion's team in 2009, with the super trio Dzeko, Grafite and Misimovic.
Apart from matches against Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, you can quite easily buy tickets for VfL Wolfsburg. Even for Champions League matches you can buy tickets here for less than 20 euros. You can order them on the club's website after you've created an account.
Of course, in a car city like Wolfsburg, you can easily park your car around the Volkswagen Arena at P3 until P6 lay on the Oebisfelder Straße, a 10 to 15-minute walk from the stadium.
Wolfsburg is a relatively compact city. In just 15 minutes you walk from the train station Wolfsburg Hauptbahnhof to the Volkswagen Arena.
Images: Shutterstock, BSR Agency
