It has been known, since November 2005, that the FIFA World Cup holders, Brazil, would be preparing for the Germany 2006 World Cup Finals in the lakeside village of Weggis; near Lucerne (Luzern), Switzerland.

From 22nd May to June 4th the Brazilian Seleção will be based in the Weggis Park Hotel before playing New Zealand (their final friendly match before travelling on to Germany to defend the FIFA World Cup) in the Stade de Genève; on Sunday, June 4th at 18:00.

Brazil will also be playing another friendly match while they are training in Switzerland, against an FC Luzern XI at Basle's St.-Jakob Park Stadium (Tuesday, May 30th at 20:30).

The Weggis Gemeinde has had the Brazilian flags flying for a while now and on Tuesday, 19th April local residents queued in the rain for the chance to snap up the first 7,000 tickets to watch the five-time FIFA World Champions train on their doorstep.

On a sunny Monday afternoon, April 24th, the rest of Switzerland had the chance to buy tickets for the Brazilian training sessions - one in the mornings (09:15) and one in the evenings (16:45) - with the sale of these tickets sold exclusively through mobilezone.

Although, predictably, long queues formed outside their shops in Luzern and Zug - the nearest cities to Weggis - the whole of Switzerland played the long waiting game.

Demand was so high that the computers crashed, or crawled slower than a referee blows a whistle when one sees 90 minutes on the clock. By four o'clock half of the 40,000 tickets had been sold. One man coming out of the Luzern shop, at 4 o'clock, had been waiting since half past eleven.

At the Seedam Centre, an hour away from Weggis, a Brazilian girl finally walked out with her tickets at half-past six; after waiting for over three hours.

Tickets, priced 20 Swiss francs each, were limited to four a person; although they could be purchased for different dates, or both training sessions on the same day.

Little did those with tickets know that the Thermoplan Arena, with an expected 5,000 seats, was still a building site; just 1 month before the Brazilian team were due to arrive.

Related Website:
Weggis Event.

We're currently on a two week tour of the 2006 World Cup Cities in Germany, visiting Munich, Nürnberg, Leipzig, Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Köln, Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart..... in that order.

I was hoping to get online more often and post World Cup city updates as we go but the days have been so full that I've hardly had time to put the digital photos on the laptop and do some editing, let alone find a wireless hotpoint.

The tour is on schedule, although the weather hasn't been that great.

We've found some good hotels to recomend, still with vacancies during the World Cup dates, but their prices will increase 60-100% during the finals.

The stadiums are looking great but many of them are still undergoing finishing touches to car-parking areas and approach roads. I've been assured that all construction work will be finished within two months... fingers crossed.