rita75000
Traveller
0 comments
Posted 3 weeks ago
Hello, I'm planning to go to Hamburg from Paris, without passing by neither Frankfurt nor Liege (personal choice). Since I don't want to depart too early in the morning nor arrive too late in the evening, I'm considering a stop-over, most likely in Rheine or Osnabrück. I haven't been to neither (but heard of Osnabrück from a S. Zweig novel) and would be happy to receive some advice for making a choice (suggesting other stop-overs also fine).
I believe that the train between Rheine and Osnabrück is a quite short one, would someone have a view on whether this should be done late in the evening or in the morning after (not too early)? How are the areas close to the stations in both cities, any standard hotels that are not too recent?
Many thanks
nltrainer
Traveller
1465 comments
NOT passing by Liége (Lüttich in german) is a harder job to do for this. It has a brand new tram and a quite nice Calatrava designed still new station. Was there very recently myself-and also those 2 other places, even though I am not german/deutsch.
LOCal trains, making much longer trips, serve Rh->Os every half hour or so, alternate R=local and RE=medium fast, most by €=eurobahn, a company that quite often cancels or runs late. It is NOT the normal routing from Pr to HH, that comes from Münster-which most think is way more attractive as those 2 you mention. So My guess is you choose the rote via Nl+Nederland to avoid that Liége that way.
Rh is just a quite small local town, nothing special or spectacular. But it has 2 shops with cheap cf in its station.
OS is larger but also has IMHO not really anything that makes it special. DE=Deutschland has dozens of such medium sized towns and most look also pretty much same-same. Its main station is a crossing with tracks on 2 levels.
Hint: IF you also want to come back and use transport whilst in main seaprt (HH=Hansestadt Hamburg, on the carplates and also bahn.de takes it) and dont mind the slower trains with more changes, use that DE-ticket for 1 month and pay only to/fro german border. It cost 58€ for 1 calandermonth-and is easiest to set up from abroad on mo.pla solutions-but you MUST cancel it before the month ends, as its a running subsciption. Just show that QR-code on your fone when checked.
As its DE, there will be HTLs close by the station=bahnhof. Just use a site like booking.com that shows most.
I myself fairly often stay in a chain hotelBB-comparable to Ibis -in fact they have taken over and transformed many Ibis in DE as it was not known so much. But they are mostly fairly new. There is 1 in OS backside of station.
From your description I guess you travel via NL. Note that in between RH and OS is Ibbenbüren, a much more touristy small town where all trains also stop-except the IC that does AMSterdam->Berlin all the way.
An ALT would be to go via LUXembourg and along the Mosel to Koblenz and then onward Germany. Parhaps IF you use DE-ticket and want to vary, for the way back/
MisterSteve
Traveller
1126 comments
there is a cost problem to consider.
If you are using an Interrail pass and stop overnight on the way you will need to use 2 days of the pass when the journey could easily be done on 1 day.
If you buy ordinary tickets DB will sell you a discounted price for Paris-Karslruhe-Hamburg but that would have to be used on the rains they quote and a normal enquiry will not find the itinery you want (middle of the day travel and overnight stop). Buying Paris- tovernight stop will only be a little cheaper than going all teh way to Hamburg but without expert knowledge of www.bahn.de you will have to but the second day as a second ticket which will work out more expensive.
If you travel via Amsterdam (which is a sensible suggestion) you have to buy Eurostar at their tarif and then DB will sell a fixed trains discounted ticket from Amsterdam to Hamburg - but again an overnight stop at either German town will need 2 tickets at higher cost without knowledge of how to use the system, although with this route you could overnight in Amsterdam and then the ticketing is simple.