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 Public transport in Karlsruhe by Nemorino
You could also do this by bicycle, which has recently gotten a lot easier now that numerous CallBikes are available for spontaneous short-term rentals right at the station and all over the city center.
You could also go for a ride on Karlsruhe’s exemplary public transport system. Just get on one of the streetcars at platform A or B outside the main station. The S1, S4 S11 and S14 all go to the theater, as does the number 2. It’s only the fourth stop on any of these lines.
The tram lines starting with an S run as streetcars in the city, but then switch to traditional railroad tracks and go far out into the countryside. On the S6, for example, you could go all the way to Bad Wildbad for the Belcanto Opera Festival. Leave a Comment
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Karlsruhe's townscape would not be complete without the yellow trams. They take you (almost) everywhere in town and its surroundings. There is no better way of getting around. Trams travel every 10 minutes in the daytime, every 20 minutes in the evening and on weekends. Some main routes operate all night long on weekends.
Karlsruhe's public transport administration made a clever decision: The width of the tram rails is the same as that of the DB trains, which means that the trams can use the railroad tracks. This system has become known as the "Karlsruhe model" among transportation experts.
Tram routes extend far out of town - North to Heilbronn and into the Kraichgau hills, East to Bietigheim-Bissingen, i.e. the outskirts of Stuttgart, South beyond Baden-Baden, West across the Rhine to Wörth, into the Black Forest up the Alb valley to Bad Herrenalb and up the Murg valley to Freudenstadt. Most of these trams travel through the very city center of Karlsruhe.
The cheapest option to travel round the city is the Citykarte, which is valid for 24 hours of unlimited travel in the city: 4,50 € for one person, 6,80 € for up to five people travelling together. Since a single ticket is 2,00 €, this is a real bargain.
If you want to travel further, there is the Regiokarte which covers the whole area of the Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund and all carriers including bus, tram and regional trains: 7,80 € for one person, 13,00 € for up to five people.
For the Germans: BahnCard holders can buy single tickets for 1,50 €.
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Now that CallBikes are available in Karlsruhe, there is no shortage of bicycles for spontaneous short-term rentals.
But unlike many other German cities, Karlsruhe has no bicycle station at the main railway station, so you can't just get off the train and rent a bicycle for the whole day.
The nearest bicycle shop is the Bike Lager, which is about three blocks from the station at Ettlinger Str. 43 (Tel. 0721-3841557, http://www.bikelager.de/). They say that "in principle" they rent bicycles, but usually have no more than two or three rental bikes on hand at any one time. So it's obviously not a big chunk of their business.
I must say, though, that in the few minutes I spent loitering around their shop I was favorably impressed with the service and advice that they were giving their customers.
Second photo: If you start asking around about bicycle rentals in Karlsruhe, you will most likely be referred to Mike's Bikes in the Sophienstraße 180 (Tel. 0721-855494, http://www.mikes-bike.de/). This is nowhere near the station, but it is quite close to the Adult Education Center if that is any help. When I took this photo they were closed for vacation -- in June! I've never heard of a bicycle shop closing in June before (except maybe in Australia or New Zealand), but they did it. As far as I know this Mike's Bikes in Karlsruhe is no relation to the more famous shops of the same name in Munich and Amsterdam.
Third, fourth and fifth photos: Apart from longer-term rentals, however, the bicycle infrastructure in Karlsruhe is actually quite good, and you see lots of nice people on bikes. Here are three of them. Leave a Comment Theme: Bicycle
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Getting TO Karlsruhe is no problem. The ICE train (InterCity Express) from Frankfurt takes just over an hour if it’s a through train, and hardly longer if you have to change in Mannheim because your new train will be on the other side of the same platform.
Getting back home FROM Karlsruhe after the opera is a bit tricky, though, because the last through ICE train leaves at 22:00 (10 pm), which is much too early for opera goers. All the connections after that are very slow or very late, or both.
Of course you could always get a hotel room in Karlsruhe, but that’s more of a bother and can easily double the cost of the excursion.
Occasionally they put on afternoon opera performances at 15:00 on Saturdays or Sundays, so the best solution is to go to one of those if there is one.
Second photo: A first class coach in the ICE train to Karlsruhe.
Third photo: You can tell that this is one of the original ICE 1 trains that have been in service since about 1991, because the dining car has an attractive high roof with skylights. Attractive, yes, but aerodynamically disadvantageous, so to reduce wind resistance and save energy these bulges were eliminated from the more recent ICE 2 and 3 trains.
Fourth photo: A second class coach in the ICE train to Karlsruhe.
Fifth photo: The BordBistro in the ICE train to Karlsruhe. Leave a Comment
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 by nhcramLeave a Comment Theme: Train
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 main shopping street by tessy
In Karsruhe itsself there are trams, lots of cars and bikes!
;-) Leave a Comment
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Karlsruhe’s main station, or Hauptbahnhof, is centrally situated and served by a number of tram routes. I travelled by train only once, it for the day trip to Speyer, when I was impressed by the efficient service. We took the train in the direction of Mannheim; other destinations served from here include Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Basel. I also read that there are night trains from several European cities stopping in Karlsruhe, e.g. Amsterdam, Linz, Paris Gare de L'Est, Salzburg and Vienna.
Facilities at the station include a café (where Nathalie and I had a pleasant drink while waiting for our bus back to the airport), a number of fast-food stands, and several shops. There are left-luggage lockers charging between €2 and €6, depending on size, for a 24 hour period – I used a €4 one for my weekend bag and it was more than big enough.
One extra feature which seemed to be attracting a lot of attention from young children (and their fathers!) was an extensive model railway system, situated on the lower level near the back entrance (where the airport buses and others depart from) – see photo 4.
The link below takes you to the English language version of the Deutsche Bahn website, but it’s helpfully available in a number of other languages – click the drop-down menu in the top right corner.
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Karlsruhe is considered to have an exemplary public transport system, of which the trams are a key element. A large network of lines criss-crosses the city. At first glance it can look confusing (well, it did to me!) but once you’ve developed some sense of the city’s layout and the way the map, downloadable from the website below, works, it all falls into place. The large interchange points such as Markt Platz and Europaplatz are served by quite a few lines, as can be seen by the bar connecting them all on the map. You need to be aware that lines running in different directions (i.e. east-west or north-south) have different stops, but again the map makes that clear when you study it. Trams with just a number, such as 2 or 4, serve the inner city, while those preceded by an S, such as S6, also travel out to the suburbs and to various towns beyond, where they run on regular train lines (a concept that was apparently invented here in Karlsruhe).
Tickets can be bought at the machines found at every tram stop. There are a number of different tickets available, and it pays to plan ahead and buy accordingly. For instance a single trip within Karlsruhe is €2, a ticket for 4 journeys costs €7 and a ticket valid for 24 hours €4.50. When travelling in a group of four, we bought a four journey ticket and validated it in all four sections, thus saving ourselves €1 each time.
But if you’re planning to use the trams a lot, it pays to get a Karlsruhe WelcomeCard. This costs €9.50 and entitles you to free travel on all buses and trams in the inner city over a 3 day period (at weekends) or a 2 day one during the week. There are also additional benefits such as reduced entrance fees for some museums, free coffee and beer at certain places, etc. You can buy this WelcomeCard at the Tourist-Information Office next to the main train station.
The trams themselves are clean, apparently have plenty of room and were a pleasure to use.
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If you arrive by train and need a locker then you leave the platform to "Sued" and City. There are lockers in 3 places and if you are unlucky they are all full or out of order. One lot is near McDonald's, the 2nd lot at the other end of the underpass and the 3rd lot just outside the main entrance to the left. Prices start at 3 Euro.
Otherwise, if you need to buy a ticket keep in mind the line is long and slow. Best to use one of the ticket vending machines if you can handle them.
From Karlsruhe you reach lovely Switzerland in 1,5 hours or Frankfurt in about one hour. Leave a Comment
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 by Bernd_L
The trains used have been a shining example for a lot of other cities because they invented a two-engine system. This made it possible to drive the trains with the different voltages of the tram system and on the tracks of the overland trains, thus allowing to build a large network without too many investment.
plan of the train net (pdf)
electronic schedule (in german) Leave a Comment Theme: Train
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