Euro 2016 travelling fans thread *contains trips to France*

Yeah yeah, I know we've got the ticket applications thread, but probably warrants a new one in the Euro forum.

Who's going over?

Who's got tickets for which games?

Who's in the fan parks for the atmosphere?

Who's staying where?

Who's driving? Who's flying? Who's on the train?

Man, it's going to be BRILLIANT.

I'm so giddy, kind of gutted I'm only doing a long weekend.

Flying to Paris early Thursday morning, got the Germany v Poland game at night. Then I'm in Paris until Sunday, currently trying to get tickets for Portugal v Austria on the Saturday.

Driving down to Northeast France on the opening Saturday and staying in a Villa for a week near Lille and Lens. Going to Germany Ukraine on the Sunday in Lille and then England Wales on the Thursday in Lens, Also have tickets for the Lens last 16 game which is likely to be Spain against a third placed team from one of 3 groups including England's, and for the QF in Lille which is the one England would be in if they win the group.

Those games would be day trips but it's likely I'll end up selling the last 16 game unless we do somehow end up playing in it, which is rather unlikely as we'd have to come 3rd, and still qualify, and even then it's only a 50/50 chance .

Had an absolute nightmare this week.

My travel companion came around to sort out booking the car having already booked everything else which included

Parking in Stanstead

Flights to/from Bilbao

Overnight stay in Bilbao

Accommodation through Camp Ninja in Bordeaux.

While there, my friend also wanted me to total up how much he owed me as i'd paid for everything bar the car so far (he is driving, so it has to be him).

I noticed there was a credit to my account from Camp Ninja from a fortnight & so investigated further.

Turns out, that i'd had an email, but it had gone to my spam folder, so glad i've managed to catch it when i did.

They had everything agreed for where they were going to be having their popup camp with the organisers and landowners and everything, but the security services turned around & decided that they didnt want to allow it any more.

Wish i'd seen it two weeks ago, because I would have been able to have better sourced some accommodation then, but never mind all sorted now. Ended up staying in the place we were going to book before we decided to use Camp Ninja. Just that now, we've only got a room with a double bed, which is a shame, but we've known each other a long time, so it'll be fine.

Going for 5 nights, 4 of them in Bordeaux, got tickets for the Wales vs Slovakia game. So ridiculously excited for it at the moment. I'll be like a kid at Christmas.

I've also got tickets for the Quarter Finals, Semi Finals & Final should Wales manage to get that far.

I'll be going back to France for those games should I need to, so i may well be looking for people with spare accommodation by that time if people won't mind putting up a couple of very excited Welsh men.

My brother and I:

Eurostar out on morning Tuesday 21st to Paris

Hotel booked for 1 night in Paris near Republique metro

Train to Lens at 4.40pm for the Czech Republic v Turkey game. Last train back to Paris at 11.50pm

Next day: touristy stuff all day then Iceland v Austria at 6pm. Train back to London at 9pm that night

Flying to Marseille at 6am on Friday 10th, staying at a campsite till the Tuesday, watching England vs Russia on the Saturday. Can't wait.

Driving down to Lyon on 18th June with my brother and 2 mates. Staying a hotel on the edge of Lyon for 5 nights, Watching Romania v Albania on the Sunday, England v Slovakia in St Etienne on the Monday, Ukraine v Poland in Marseille on the Tuesday and then Hungary v Portugal on the weds. Stupidly excited already.

Oh tip, for anybody flying in to somewhere other than France & wanting to hire a car to cross the border - Sixt rentals allow you to do that with no additional charges everywhere else I checked needed additional insurances.

Just out of interest, to those driving, how long is it gonna take? We were originally going to Lille and planning on driving but we changed plans to see England in Marseille so opted against, particularly as we live up north and it would have taken us about 6 hours just to get down south in this country

Still can't believe how well we did in the initial ballot last summer, pretty much got our pick of the group games and returned enough spares to pay for the rest of the trip when the refund came through.

We're driving about 2,500 miles over 8-9 days, although about 500 of that is just getting to Dover and back.

Thu 16 Jun - Early ferry from Dover, drive to hotel on southern side of Paris, GERMANY v POLAND at Stade de France

Fri 17 Jun - Drive from Paris to Saint-Etienne, CZECH REP v CROATIA, then drive on for a couple of hours towards Bordeaux before stopping overnight

Sat 18 Jun - Drive the rest of the way to Bordeaux, BELGIUM v IRELAND, night on the lash in Bordeaux if we're not too knackered by then

Sun 19 Jun - "Rest day" poking around Bordeaux

Mon 20 Jun - Drive from Bordeaux to Toulouse, RUSSIA v WALES

Tue 21 Jun - Drive from Toulouse to Marseille, UKRAINE v POLAND, then drive back north for a couple of hours before stopping overnight

Wed 22 Jun - Finish driving back up to Lille, ITALY v IRELAND in Lille

Thu 23 Jun - Morning ferry back to England, then home

So six games in six different grounds... two of us to share the driving so it's pretty manageable... apart from possibly the last bit where we've got about 24hrs to drive over 600 miles from Marseille all the way back to Lille After that we're home for a couple of weeks watching the Round of 16 and Quarter Finals on TV, then flying back just for one night for the first Semi Final in Lyon. Hopefully England somehow win their group and fluke it through a couple of knockout games, then I can at least get to see one England game. We gave up tickets for England-Russia and England-Wales in the Group Stage because they didn't fit with the route we'd booked.

As of now, going down to Lyon for three days for the first KO phase. Got the St Etienne game on the 25th and the Lyon game on the 26th, which should be a France game.

Just out of interest, to those driving, how long is it gonna take? We were originally going to Lille and planning on driving but we changed plans to see England in Marseille so opted against, particularly as we live up north and it would have taken us about 6 hours just to get down south in this country

We're flying to Bilbao as it was cheaper to fly to Spain, it's roughly a four hour trip from Bilbao to Bordeaux.

We'll set off in the morning & probably stop for lunch in Biarritz or Bayonne & have a bit of a break.

Thanks for sharing your plans, unfortunately im not able to go, but its interesting looking at all your itineraries.

Good luck, enjoy and stay safe

Can't wait!

Fly to Paris Thursday 9th June, the day before the tournament starts. Night in Paris then a train down to Bordeaux the following day.

Wales v Slovakia on the Saturday then a few more days in Bordeaux until we travel to Lille on the Tuesday.

Wales v England on the Thursday then the following day we travel to Toulouse.

5 nights in Toulouse and Wales v Russia on the Monday. Bring it on.

How many of us at Wales v Russia then? Must be loads

Going for three nights, flying from Guernsey to Gatwick then to Montpellier, then getting the train to Marseille.

Got tickets for England v Russia which I'm very excited for, if a little twitchy about safety etc. Never been to an England game let alone a major tournament so it should be a great long weekend!

Football fans driving in France during Euro 2016 are being advised to check the laws of the road after a study revealed fewer than two-thirds (65%) of motorists know they have to drive on the right after crossing the Channel.

.

What? Oh ffs. What is wrong with people?

Also, anybody driving, worth remembering that you need these things in your car when in France.

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/touring_tips/compulsory_equipment.pdf

You NEED a personal breathalyser with you at all times in the car.

Should be arriving in Bordeaux 3 weeks from now, almost to the minute. Going on the eurostar and tgv.

Wales v Slovakia the next day, then staying in Bordeaux and Toulouse for the next 10 days, hoping to see some other games in those cities but no tickets yet

Planning on watching the England game in the Bordeaux fanzone at the moment

We also have tickets for Wales Russia so see you all there then we fly back to London the following morning

3 days in work then hopefully back out to Nice or Paris or Lens or Lille for our 2nd round game. Have a ticket for that and any potential quarter final

Excited doesn't seem the appropriate word to convey my feelings at the moment, the next 21 days are going to go so slowly but I've waited 35 years for this so another 3 weeks should be manageable

Anyone privy on the transport available after games? Went into my travel agent today to work out the trains to get from the places we are staying to the games. We have two games in Marseille, but didn't want to stay there, so are staying in Lyon for some part of our trip. It looks like the last train that goes from Marseille to Lyon is at 8pm. Doesn't leave much time to get from the game (starting at 6pm) to the station. Then the Quarter final starts at 9pm, so no luck there. I presumed they'd have public transport running late out of the cities for those who aren't going to stay overnight.

EDIT:

Figured I'd post what we have. Flying over from Australia to get in Paris on the 18th.

21st Marseille: Ukraine v Poland

27th Saint Denis: Knock out game

30th Marseille: Quarter

1st Lillie: Quarter

Will be staying in Paris and Lyon, with ending a night in Lillie. Then off to Germany for a bit. Had 3 more group games but resold them because they were pants and mate couldn't get time off for that first week.

Still can't believe how well we did in the initial ballot last summer, pretty much got our pick of the group games and returned enough spares to pay for the rest of the trip when the refund came through.

We're driving about 2,500 miles over 8-9 days, although about 500 of that is just getting to Dover and back.

Thu 16 Jun - Early ferry from Dover, drive to hotel on southern side of Paris, GERMANY v POLAND at Stade de France

Fri 17 Jun - Drive from Paris to Saint-Etienne, CZECH REP v CROATIA, then drive on for a couple of hours towards Bordeaux before stopping overnight

Sat 18 Jun - Drive the rest of the way to Bordeaux, BELGIUM v IRELAND, night on the lash in Bordeaux if we're not too knackered by then

Sun 19 Jun - "Rest day" poking around Bordeaux

Mon 20 Jun - Drive from Bordeaux to Toulouse, RUSSIA v WALES

Tue 21 Jun - Drive from Toulouse to Marseille, UKRAINE v POLAND, then drive back north for a couple of hours before stopping overnight

Wed 22 Jun - Finish driving back up to Lille, ITALY v IRELAND in Lille

Thu 23 Jun - Morning ferry back to England, then home

So six games in six different grounds... two of us to share the driving so it's pretty manageable... apart from possibly the last bit where we've got about 24hrs to drive over 600 miles from Marseille all the way back to Lille After that we're home for a couple of weeks watching the Round of 16 and Quarter Finals on TV, then flying back just for one night for the first Semi Final in Lyon. Hopefully England somehow win their group and fluke it through a couple of knockout games, then I can at least get to see one England game. We gave up tickets for England-Russia and England-Wales in the Group Stage because they didn't fit with the route we'd booked.

My mate and I will be at the Marseille game on the 21st, Ukraine v Poland. Want to drive us to Lyon after the game? haha.

Seriously? Chuck us a few quid towards the petrol and we might be able to get you somewhere near. We are booked to stay in Vienne which is only 20 miles or so south of Lyon so the plan was to head straight there after the Marseille game finishes. Don't know if we'll have space though really, because my mate's only got a Mini and we will have a fair bit of luggage between us.

Surely they are putting some extra trains on on matchdays?

We'll be in Paris for the final, but will be watching from the fan park en route to Barcelona. No chance of final tickets obvs

Yeah yeah, I know we've got the ticket applications thread, but probably warrants a new one in the Euro forum.

Who's going over?

Who's got tickets for which games?

Who's in the fan parks for the atmosphere?

Who's staying where?

Who's driving? Who's flying? Who's on the train?

Man, it's going to be BRILLIANT.

I will be in Lille during the EURO and can offer accommodation! Contact me if interested

Cheers!

I'm going with some mates and we've hired a camper van sort of thing

Getting the ferry and then driving down to Marseille for the Russia game then back up for the Wales game before heading home

I will be in Lille during the EURO and can offer accommodation! Contact me if interested

Cheers!

My mate and I are looking for accommodation in Lille for the 1st to the 2nd. Just need somewhere over night. You have a place? Got any recommendations or areas? Been sussing out airbnb places.

Seriously? Chuck us a few quid towards the petrol and we might be able to get you somewhere near. We are booked to stay in Vienne which is only 20 miles or so south of Lyon so the plan was to head straight there after the Marseille game finishes. Don't know if we'll have space though really, because my mate's only got a Mini and we will have a fair bit of luggage between us.

Surely they are putting some extra trains on on matchdays?

haha, that's fine. Can't image there would be much space in a mini. We're hoping to bail straight after the game too, but there doesn't look like many options. The official EURO 2016 train partner still shows last train is 8pm.

Maybe we can catchup for a beer before hand. We will probably get there at midday.

Sounds good. We've got 250ish miles to drive from Toulouse in the morning so I doubt we'll be there much before 2pm or so. Not looked at the maps and stuff yet, going to try and park near a tram/metro stop on the north side somewhere so we don't have to drive right through the city. You look pretty screwed if you're relying on a train after the game.

We're doing that game too and heading back to Lyon after, think we're going to try and just leave 5 minutes before the end of the game, and hope we don't miss anything, else we are a bit ****ed.

Flying to Nice on the 12th of June got a 7 bedroom Villa booked where 17 of us are staying. Have got tickets for Poland v Northern Ireland on the 12th as well.

17th of June we've got tickets for Spain vs Turkey

18th of June 9 of us are going on a 3 day road trip starting with Iceland v Hungary in Marseille,

19th of June it's over to Lyon for Romania v Albania

20th of June it's over to St Etienne for Slovakia v England

Back to Nice on the 21st for a couple of days at the Villa before flying back home on the 23rd of June.

How do you organise a group of 17 mates ffs?

I plod all over the place watching football but only one other bloke I know is daft/committed enough to do it with me.

I don't, I'm just paying my money & tagging along I'll just go with the flow.

Not just lads tbf though, a few of them are bringing their missus which is why we've got a few down days. Lad who's organising it is used to doing all the organising though as he runs coaches to all the away games for us.

Just looking at that list above though & i've missed a game out, we've got tickets for Belgium v Sweden on the 22nd in Nice as well so I can dare to Zlatan

We're doing that game too and heading back to Lyon after, think we're going to try and just leave 5 minutes before the end of the game, and hope we don't miss anything, else we are a bit ****ed.

It's either that or stay the night in Marseille. Really sucks. We might have to do the same thing, but trying to get out of the stadium, get to the station and on the train before it leaves at 8pm will be tight. Poorly organised to be fair. The City to City trains should be running much later.

found a new thing to worry about, our connection in paris for the train to bordeaux

as they provided the tickets as a package i didnt even think about it too much but the eurostar arrives at paris nord at 16.57 and the bordeaux train leaves paris montparnasse at 18.04

various websites seem to be suggesting leaving around 75 minutes for the connection

wouldnt mind if it was just me, quite happy to run around metro stations etc but i'll be with my dad who walks slowly at the best of times

get him a wheelchair!

ha

will end up getting a taxi i reckon, visions of being stuck in rush hour traffic watching the minutes go by and the meter go up

I've also got tickets for the Quarter Finals, Semi Finals & Final should Wales manage to get that far.

I'll be going back to France for those games should I need to, so i may well be looking for people with spare accommodation by that time if people won't mind putting up a couple of very excited Welsh men.

Do you have tickets for the quarter final on the Sunday in France? We desperately need 1 more ticket for that. If Wales don't make it that far are you willing to sell?

He'll have a UEFA voucher through the Wales FA, presumably, which means you can swap it for a valid match ticket on matchday only if your team get through.

Otherwise it's worthless, except possibly as a museum piece.

Yeah, what Rob said.

It's a "conditional" ticket. The condition being that Wales get to that stage.

found a new thing to worry about, our connection in paris for the train to bordeaux

as they provided the tickets as a package i didnt even think about it too much but the eurostar arrives at paris nord at 16.57 and the bordeaux train leaves paris montparnasse at 18.04

various websites seem to be suggesting leaving around 75 minutes for the connection

wouldnt mind if it was just me, quite happy to run around metro stations etc but i'll be with my dad who walks slowly at the best of times

Yeah we've been told to leave an hour in case of delays and stuff but apparently the metro across is only 30 minutes so it might be ok providing no delays.

We are still waiting on a response from interrail that certain trains we have tried to reserve are ok. They suggested one train that had an 11 minute turnaround for the above journey you mentioned so I'm not too confident in them.

We planned to go by car all along so I never looked at them, but I'm amazed there aren't extra trains running until the early hours.

Surely going to be thousands of fans stranded otherwise when the late games don't finish until 11pm.

This Ukraine v Poland we've been talking about isn't even the last game of the day.

Yeah we've been told to leave an hour in case of delays and stuff but apparently the metro across is only 30 minutes so it might be ok providing no delays.

We are still waiting on a response from interrail that certain trains we have tried to reserve are ok. They suggested one train that had an 11 minute turnaround for the above journey you mentioned so I'm not too confident in them.

I'm reading that the walk from the train to the underground at both ends is 10 minutes or so for normal people

I'm reading that the walk from the train to the underground at both ends is 10 minutes or so for normal people

We're back to the wheelchair

I'll be in Lyon for the game between Belgium and Italy on the 13th of June

I've never been at any of the big international tournaments, so really can't wait!

Got to France v Italy @ Euro 2008 but it was literally go to the game, back to the airport & sleep in the airport for a few hours before getting flight back. This is first one I've been able to go for 10 days & get a few games in, can't wait.

World cup next on the wish list but don't really fancy Qatar or Russia so hoping one of them gets the plug pulled on em.

Going to Lille on the 12th to see Germany-Ukraine.

I'm going with some mates and we've hired a camper van sort of thing

Getting the ferry and then driving down to Marseille for the Russia game then back up for the Wales game before heading home

Did this in 98 and the camper fell apart before we got to Dover. Never going to see your deposit so the sooner you smash it the better. Then everyone can relax and enjoy. When we took ours back there was 10 other just like it coming back from the World Cup