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Location: United States, California, Hollywood
Longitude: -118°19′19″
Latitude: 34°8′3″
A city where football and beer are revered, Dortmund could be described as heaven on earth for the average soccer fan.
There is absolutely no chance of the World Cup passing the Dortmund folk by. After all, no fewer than 38,000 of its inhabitants are registered with local football teams, while the Ruhr city’s professional club Borussia Dortmund is the best supported outfit in Germany, regularly enjoying sell-outs at their immense 83,000 Signal Iduna Park (previously known as Westfalenstadion) home.
A cauldron of noise and passion on matchdays, the so-called Opera House of German football also contains the largest terraced section in Europe, the 25,000 Sudtribune (South Stand). Unfortunately, FIFA do not allow standing areas at World Cup games and so the ground will be in its all-seater configuration of 60,285 this summer.
The stadium is situated in Westfalenpark to the south of town — which also features an indoor sports arena, ice rink, television tower, hotels and landscaped grounds — and is easily reached by U Bahn line 45 from the central railway station. During the World Cup, a ‘Fan Festival’ will be held right next door to the ground, with a big screen showing every game and regular live concerts.
Countless bars flank Hohe Strasse, the main road which links the city centre with the Westfalen. Alternatively you could ‘go Dortmund’ and stop off for one of the taverns in the Kreuzviertel district to the north of the Signal Iduna Park for a drink and a snack. Two of the most popular are the Gastatte Burgermeister Lindemann on Lindemanstrasse and the Gastatte Barrock on Kreuzstrasse.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that beer is the elixir of Dortmund life. The city used to be second only to America’s Milwaukee in terms of beer production and though Dortmund now has just two major breweries following a series of mergers, the beverage continues to be an integral part of the city’s economic and social fabric.
With 1,500 licensed premises in town, beer drinkers really are spoilt for choice here and you don’t have to go far either. The central Markt is crammed with beer halls, as are nearby Kleppingstrasse and Hansastrasse. Particularly look out for Der Thuringer on Markt, Hopfendolde and Einkehr on Hansastrasse and to the west of the market place on Hoher Wall, Hovels Hausbrauerei, a micro-brewery whose speciality is Bitterbier, a highly-malty brew.
All the beer halls serve hearty carnivore fare such as ‘Pfefferposthast’ (beef and onion stew), sausages, schnitzel and roast lamb, but the blue riband for delicious food should jointly go to Am Alten Markt and Brinkhoffs on Markt and Pfefferkorn on Hoher Wall. There are also several outstanding Italian restaurants in town — particularly Rigoletto (Kleppingstrasse) and Il Golfo (Kleppingstarsse) — a first-rate sushi bar, Kyoto (Rosental), and a plethora of good kebab places around the train station on the north side of town.
Football fans might want to visit Hoppy’s Treff, a restaurant/bar on Nordstrasse owned by Dieter ‘Hoppy’ Kurrat, a member of the Borussia Dortmund team which beat Liverpool in the Final of the 1966 European Cup-winners’ Cup. There’s even a ‘Liverpool steak’ on the menu. As for the best nightspots, head for Live Station near the railway station on Konigswall and Stadtpalais on Hansastrasse.
Dortmund is very much a city reinventing itself. Once dependent on its rich coal mines and flourishing steel works, those industries went into severe decline in the last two decades of the last century and one by one the pits and the smelting works would close their doors. Now, though, there is a new optimism thanks to Dortmund’s emergence as a centre of IT excellence.
Certainly, the old image of smoking chimney stacks and slag heaps is no longer applicable. Indeed, it’s a very environmentally friendly place, one where greenery accounts for half the urban area. Look out for the inner city’s green lung, the Stadtgarten park to the south of the Markt, as well as the Romberg Park Botanical Gardens in the southern suburbs and the Fredenbaum park to the north, Dortmund’s oldest.
Within walking distance of the railway station are Dortmund’s four medieval churches: Petrikirche, Propsteikirche, Reinoldikirche and Marienkirche, while other tourist haunts are the Museum of Art and Cultural History on Hansastrasse and the extensive collection of 20th century art at the Museum am Ostwall on the east side of the inner ring road.
The main shopping streets are Westenhellweg, Ostenhellweg and Kleppingstrasse, with Hansastrasse the place to go for upmarket purchases, especially designer clothes. Bruckstrasse hosts an eclectic range of small shops and boutiques.
Dortmund Airport is linked to the city’s main railway station by a regular shuttle bus. It costs £3.50 one-way for the 25-minute ride. The railway and bus stations are on Konigswall on the north side of the inner ring road. The tourist office is opposite the train’s station’s south exit. On underground trains, trams and buses, short-ride single tickets cost £1.30, while a day pass is £4.60.
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