Hamburg

Hamburg City Hall
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HH_Rathaus_pano1.jpg
Author: Daniel Schwen


Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany after Berlin. With a population of 1.7 million people within a metropolitan area of 4.3 million people, it is also the sixth largest city in the European Union. A major port city for Germany, Hamburg is located on the river Elbe in northern Germany. In addition to being a city, it is also one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Like Bremen, Hamburg is a Free Hanseatic City. In addition to being the home of the second largest port in Europe after Rotterdam, and the 9th largest in the world, Hamburg is also the media and industrial centre of Germany.

Hamburg was named after the first building to be built there, a castle constructed by Charlemagne in 808 AD. The castle was known as Hammaburg. In 834, Hamburg became a seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. In 1529, it embraced Lutheranism, receiving Protestant refugees from the Netherlands and France, as well as Sephardi Jews from Portugal in the 17th century.

Hamburg became a city-state of the new Federal Republic of Germany in 1945, following World War II. Its enormous port is located right at the heart of the city.

Hamburg Supreme Court
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hamburg.Oberlandesgericht.wmt.jpg
Author: Wmeinhart

Going to Hamburg

By Plane
Hamburg Airport (HAM) is the 5th largest international airport in Germany. It is connected to the city by the S-Bahn S1 line. The trains run every 10-20 minutes, and the fare is €2.70 each way. When riding the train from the city to the airport, be sure to be in the right coach. The train splits in two at Ohlsdort, with the front half going to the airport while the rest continuing to Poppenbüttel. In addition to Hamburg Airport, other nearby airports used by low-cost carriers include the Lübeck-Blankensee Airport (LBC) and the Hamburg-Finkenwerder Airport (XFW).

As a budget traveler, you might consider flying to Hamburg-Lübeck Airport (LBC), served by Ryan Air and Wizz Air.

By Train
The high-speed ICE (Inter City Express) trains link Hamburg with Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich in Germany, as well as with Basel and Zürich in Switzerland. Other cities with direct train connections include Copenhagen, Budapest, Prague, Vienna and Brastislava.

By Car
Hamburg is reached by the A1 expressway from Lübeck, Bremen and Cologne, A7 from Flensburg, Kiel, Hanover and Kassel, and the A24 from Berlin.

Exploring Hamburg

Hamburg has quite a good public transportation system provided by buses and Intracity trains. The transport operator is Hamburger Verkehrsverbund.

I would recommend that you consider the All-Day Ticket (Ganztageskarte). Moreover the ticket is transferable, meaning you can pass it to your friend or fellow traveler when you are not using. It costs €6.30. If you are traveling in a group of up to 5 persons, you can also get the group day ticket for €9.20.

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Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.