GERMANY: SOCCER / FOOTBALL - The French football team have chosen a renaissance castle in which to spend their time during the World Cup

Record ID: 872598

  • Title: GERMANY: SOCCER / FOOTBALL - The French football team have chosen a renaissance castle in which to spend their time during the World Cup
  • Date: 10th April 2006
  • Summary: VARIOUS INTERIORS OF CASTLE
  • Embargoed: 25th April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • City:
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA9IIN44SM3O6HLN81QXJGH4BS9
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  • Story Text: The hotel Muenchhausen castle looks like a renaissance French palace, the perfect setting for the French national team to spend their time during the FIFA World Cup.
    The castle was built around 1570, and became a hotel in 2004. Managing Director Karsten Wierig thinks it is perfect for the French squad.
    "What you have seen is of course a very francophile ambience, both on the inside and the outside. The renaissance castle which we have here, the French can connect with this and very quickly feel at home in it," Wierig told Reuters TV on Friday (February 24).
    Wierig said the French team not only appreciated the architecture of the castle, but also its secluded location and relaxing atmosphere.
    "That was one of their wishes, that in the time they are here, when they are not playing matches, that they can really concentrate on the world Cup and their games, and can really prepare well for them. They didn't want to have any of the hectic of being in a big city, they wanted to consciously get away from it all and be in a hotel on the outskirts," he said.
    The hotel's kitchen already specialises in French food, so Les Bleus won't have any problem finding dishes to their taste in any of the hotels restaurants.
    The hotel has had to make a few concessions to their guests from over the border though.
    "Small things like the televisions in the rooms, they obviously want to have the French programmes, the television channels which they have at home, so we shall be reprogramming all of the televisions," Wierig said.
    "And the medical staff and the physiotherapist have had particular requests for certain rooms, which then have to be refitted, but otherwise they are very satisfied with what we have on offer here."
    And if the team win the tournament, as they did in 1998, they will surely be satisfied with the quality of the champagne they can celebrate with. The hotel Muenchhausen castle has a cellar full of it.
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