Visiting Wolfsburg

Travelling – Berlin to Wolfsburg

We travelled from the central Berlin station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, on a train bound for Amsterdam. It is about an hour or 1 hour 20 minutes depending on which train you catch.

We paid €172 for a return journey for two people (€81 each) on a same day return from one of the ticket machines at the station. However, I think you can get fares for about half the price online if you book in advance and print your tickets yourself, we didn’t have that luxury!

Just to note that if you get an IC ticket, these are the normal trains. Now the ICE (Inter-City-Express) trains are the faster ones, the departures boards clearly state which ones they are and the trains themselves are white with the letters ICE all over them. They are so fast, word of warning to watch yourself on the platforms if an ICE train is passing though without stopping, it literally nearly knocked us off our feet at about 80mph through the station! The locals didn’t even flinch! (spot the tourists!)

 

Arriving at Wolfsburg

As you arrive a Wolfsburg Hauptbahnhof you get a cracking view of the very imposing VW factory on the other side of the river. It is huge!

Behind the station and viewing it from the footbridge, you can see the VW 4×4 off-road test track which runs underneath it, and if you are lucky you’ll see a motor in action as customers go for a run. We saw a Toureg being put through its paces and it was on 3 wheels at one point, it looks like is a tough course with a variety of obstacles, road surfaces, water, inclines and bumps.

 

 

 

 

Stiftung AutoMusum Volkswagen

You can walk to the Stiftung AutoMuseum by turning left out of the station and walking for about 15mins. You need to go out of the centre and under all the roadways via the subways and footpaths.

 

Now I had read that this museum housed the very early VW beetle prototype Type 32 by Ferdinand Porsche, however it was either not on view or not there. It may have been relocated to the Autostadt.

 

It is a lovely museum with some really interesting vehicles on display and well worth a visit if you are in Wolfsburg, however if you are just a day tripper, as we were, I would recommend you don’t spend too long here as there is so much to see in the Autostadt. We left ourselves short of time unfortunately.

 

 

Dieselstrasse 35, 38446 Wolfsburg

www.automuseum-volkswagen.de

Opening hours – Tues – Sun 10-5

 

 

 

 

Wolfsburg Autostadt

 

You can reach this by crossing over the footbridge next to the station, an easy couple of minutes walk.

This is a huge – I mean ‘huge’ glass fronted building which I believe lays claim to the largest glass doors in the world and the longest printed line of some 4 miles in length. Don’t do things by halves do they!

 

Once inside the glass atrium, entrance through to the Autostadt is €15 per person which can be purchased from the desks. This will then give you access through to the attractions.

We hadn’t even seen a car yet, but the ‘ultra modern’ architecture alone is something to see. Everything is sculpted, considered, titivated, mown or preened to millimeter precision – or as I like to paraphrase, it was a bit like tellytubby land – unreal!

 

 

There is a site map provided on the back of the entrance brochure which will show you how to get to each attraction, or as they call them ‘brand pavillions’. A copy of that map is attached here for your reference.

 

There are fancy bars and restaurants, fine dining, shopping and that jazz should you want it, but it was straight to the motoring for me.

 

You can visit Lamborghini, Skoda, Audi, SEAT, Volkswagen, and Porsche and they each have their own building which are definitely more of a brand advertising/selling tool than anything else but interesting all the same.

 

The Porsche building is the sculptured curved overhanging building which is awesome to experience. There is nice display inside and a F1 racecar exhibited. I loved the quote from from Ferdinand Porshce scribed on the wall :

 

“In the beginning I looked around but couldn’t find the car I dreamed of, so I decided to build it myself”.

 

The Lamborghini blew our minds with an ‘interactive advert’ with smoke and wind effects and (spoiler alert!) a Lambo spinning into the room on a revolving sphere. OMG!

 

Volkswagen display is very futuristic and modern, no reflection of historic vehicles and all about technology, digital and synching your house, work and car with gadgetry. Generally one big advert/sales pitch and not my bag if I’m honest but respect anyway.

 

The VW ‘Car Towers’ are within the grounds of the Autostadt which I was made up to see in person. You can pay extra to go up inside I believe, but we were happy to just view it from the entrance level.

 

The ZeitHaus design museum is the vintage car museum. It is on the left as you enter the site, so be warned as I was drawn away by the other attractions and left myself short on time to visit. I think I should have done this first off – note to self for the future and maybe my reason to go back!

According to other reports it is “the jewel of Autostadt and one that makes it worthy visit for car enthusiasts. A fascinating and well curated collection of significant cars, not just VW group brands. It’s a collection of cars that helped advance the industry, set new standards or just look utterly amazing.” (credit Autocar)

 

When you walk round the complex it is interesting to see the different road surfaces and substrates that they have built into the site to test their vehicles, pretty clever in my opinion.

 

If you want to participate in activities you can book AutoStadt panorama tours, overview tours, discovery tours or head to the all terrain track for some safety training, driver training or run a Tiguan, Tourareg or Amarok around the track.

You can also do the Car Tower discover tour which takes about 20 mins.

 

The Autostadt is open daily from 9am-6pm but check their website for up to date information and Christmas closures.

 

 

Wolfsburger!

Just a little ditty from our trip, after a day packed with all things car and Volkswage and no time or energy left before our train back to Berlin, we stopped off for a quick bite too eat in McDonalds at the train station, this will now forever now be known as our ‘Wolfsburger’!

 

Volksource – for the love of dubs

www.volksource.com

Volksource is in no way affiliated with Volkswagen or any other company detailed in this document. All views expressed are based upon my opinion/experiences only. All details should be verified/checked with the correct bodies directly if you are intending to travel as I may indeed get things wrong! I hope this is of some use ; )

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• Volksource

2018/06/20

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