Erfurt Transportation

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Easy to get around by taking the Strassenbahn (street cars). If you plan to use public transportation, get the City Ticket which allows you to travel on Street cars, Busses, Metros (U-Bahn).

Erfurter Verkehrsbetriebe AG
Am Urbicher Kreuz 20
99099 Erfurt

Erfurt has an airport. Not big, but that little town has one. The website I uplodaded here.

The next to reach is via Autobahn A4 (Berlin - Frankfurt/Main). From there you reach Bavaria (Coburg) via the new Thuringian Autobahn.

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Photos:
1. Bicycle House by the main railroad station
2. Free double-decker bicycle parking
3. Bicycle rentals and repairs

Erfurt's striking new Bicycle House was opened on April 25, 2009. It is located directly in front of the main station and provides bicycle parking, rentals and repairs.

The Thüringen office of the General German Bicycle Club (ADFC) is upstairs.

The name Radhaus (Bicycle House) is clever because it sounds very similar (in some dialects identical) to the word Rathaus, meaning City Hall.

Ironically, access to the Bicycle House is now hindered by a new rule which prohibits cyclists from riding through the newly widened tunnel under the station. (See next tip.)

99096 Erfurt, Bahnhofstraße 22
GPS 50°58'20.53" North; 11° 2'12.29" East

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Photos:
1. Erfurt main railroad station, 2009
2. Train to Frankfurt arriving at Erfurt main station, 2009
3. Construction work at Erfurt station in 2005
4. People waiting on the platform in 2005

Each year the German Pro-Rail Alliance (Allianz pro Schiene), a coalition of sixteen organizations including two that I belong to (PRO BAHN and VCD), chooses two outstanding German railroad stations as "Station of the Year", one in a large city and one in a small town.

In 2009 the title in the large city category went to Erfurt for its totally modernized main station.

The jurors praised the station as "a highly intelligent intersection" providing easy transfers from trains to trams, bicycles and even cars, though these have been banished from ground level to a new underground parking garage. They were also impressed with the station's new "excellent glass construction that harmonises perfectly with the building’s historic exterior" and lets in a lot of light to formerly dark corners.

The hourly InterCityExpress trains (ICE) from Frankfurt am Main to Leipzig and Dresden all stop here in Erfurt.

Possibly even more ICE trains will stop here in future years, if the proposed new high-speed line from Nürnberg is ever built. But even if it isn't -- and I'm not at all sure it is a sensible idea, since it would be insanely expensive and would divert funds from other more urgent projects -- Erfurt will still remain a major changing point between lines going off in various directions. (In 2005 I changed here for Dessau, for example.)

GPS 50°58'21.88" North; 11° 2'15.88" East

Parking in this region and even in the bigger towns is way cheaper than what we are used to in The Netherlands (where 2-3 euro per hour is normal).
We stayed in Erfurt for 4 hours and paid € 4.80 total. The parking was under the central square where the cathedral is.

Parkhaus Domplatz

Tip: For € 2 you can do the "GutenAbend Parking" (good evening). You park from 18-24 hrs on day one and your car stays parked overnight until 7 in the morning.

A 90 min ride by car or train from Leipzig or three hours by train or car from Frankfurt/Main.

As Erfurt has a national airport it is so possible to get there by plane.

If you arrive Erfurt by train the beautifully restaurated station is awaiting you.

Erfurt is on th DB network. Train times can broused on www.bahn.de. By the way that www site can be used to find train times from and to anywhere in Europe not just Germany.

I saw these in most towns. The people who operate these carriages seem to be knowledgeable of the town.