Best way to reach Freiburg from NYC
 

Hi folks,

I have to travel to Freiburg, Germany in mid May. I was told that I will have to fly into Munich or Zurich from NYC/Newark and take the train to Freiburg. Are there other airports which would be more convenient? If not, which would be better - Zurich or Munich. I will be arriving and departing on a weekend (May 9 and 15), and am concerned that trains may not be running as frequently as on weekdays.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Frankfurt and the train to Basel.

Surely the airport for Freiburg is Basle-Mulhouse-Freiburg, which has flights to most European hubs, including Heathrow, Gatwick, CDG, Frankfurt and Brussels.(www.euroairport.com)

Whence the bus: http://www.suedbadenbus.de/konzern/h...g_airbus.shtml

You could also fly into Strasbourg airport : http://www.strasbourg.aeroport.fr/E/index_E.html

It is very close to freiburg however you will have to make a european connection to get there.

Both Frankfurt and Zurich are about equidistant from Freigburg in terms of train travel time. Frankfurt may be the cheapest to fly into as it is a large hub for international flights. If you can get a non-stop flight from the US to Frankfurt versus a flight to Zurich where you have to change somewhere in Europe (like Frankfurt) , I would take the Frankfurt flight.

A third option is to fly into Basel, which is actually closer to Freiburg. However, there is no train station at the airport, and you have to take a bus in Basel, which takes about 20 minutes and I believe only runs once an hour. This adds time to your trip. Unless you can get a non-stop and/or cheap flight into Basel, I would go with Frankfurt or Zurich.

Approximate train times to Freiburg from

Basel: 45 minutes to 1.5 hours (no change required)
Frankfurt airport: 2 hours (some trains require one change)
Zurich airport: 2 hours (one or two changes required)

Bo go bahn.de for rail timetables and fares for all the places mentioned above.

Trains to and from Frankfurt and Zurich airports appear to run often, about hourly.

Hello dadofmike,

I thought I'd share some info with you that I ound yesterday.

I have been looking for inexpensive airfare so that some friends can join me in Germany this summer.

I got a price of $1,133 from Lufthansa JFK to Frankfurt, and a similar price for US Air, Philly to Frankfurt. Bit concerned about these prices. Both airlines claim that the Olympics is causing high airfare prices.

Didn't necessarily believe either one, so I checked Singapore's webpage and found a flight from JFK to Frankfurt in early June for $615 roundtrip.

Alot has been written about Singapore Air. They are my favorite airline and it makes it even better when they are more than $500 a trip cheaper than Lufthansa or US Air.

Check them out. The flight leaves at 9:45PM and gets into Frankfurt just after 11AM the next day. Connections from Frankfurt to Frieburg are easy from there.

Have a great trip. I'll be in Titisee, about 45 minutes from Freiburg for a few nights in June. The Black Forest is one of my favorite parts of Germany.

Happy Travelling!!

Mark

When I went to Freiburg from the U.S. (from Chicago), I flew into Brussels and then to Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg and took the train to Freiburg, but I had a long layover in Brussels (great for seeing the city though). It really will depend on the airline you use and what connections are required. You could possibly save a lot of time by flying into Zurich or some other major airport and then taking the train to Freiburg rather than have a connection with a long layover.

Hi! As a former resident of Freiburg, I definitely think Frankfurt is best. The train leaves directly from the airport train station, and takes you to Freiburg directly in 2 hrs with no changes at all. And, there used to be a train every hour.

Basel is the other alternative; there is a direct bus from the airport to the Freiburg train station.

Zurich would most likely require a change of trains in Basel.

Munich is most definitely the least convenient.

I agree with the above post. The several times I've been to Freiburg im Breisgau, the simplest route was Newark to Frankfurt, then the train to Freiburg in 2hrs15min(including a change of trains in Mannheim). This was on the ICE with seat reservation required...just buy a ticket at the train station on arrival...the trains as I recall are hourly all day.

Hi! Just checked the schedules, and there is a train every hour at 53 past the hour (at least on weekdays). These are all ICE trains, and every other one involves a change of trains in Mannheim (odd hours - no change, even hours - change). Travel time is 2:09 regardless.

3-4 years ago these used to be all IC trains with no change at all...

Thanks, folks.

Looks like I will be flying into Frankfurt and taking the train to Freiburg.

I went on the website suggested in one of the posts for the train schedules - put in Freiburg, Germany as the destination - error message came up saying that the input is ambigous and was asked to specify.

Sorry, but this would be my first time traveling on a train in Europe. Can someone specify what I should be searching for so I can be certain that I am looking at the correct schedule. Also, what's an ICE train?

Thanks, again.

ICE(Inter City Express) trains are the nicer & faster trains in Germany. It's the train you should take, it costs a little more but it's worth it. There are also IC (Inter City) trains which can be ok but usually older trains with several stops in the small towns. For your purposes it's better to take the ICE trains. I don't know which website you used, but check if you had reversed the date & month sequence (date/month/year).

dadofmike. Try inputting Freiburg-im-Breisgau, as there are several other Freiburgs in Germany.

dadofmike:
Frankfurt (M) Flughafen -
Hauptbahnhof (Stadtbahn), Freiburg im Breisgau are the exact origination/destinations that you want to enter. A train leaves the airport at 53 minutes past every hour (your specific weekend included), takes 2 hours and 9 minutes, and takes one or no changes of train.
I am travelling from Frankfurt to Gengenbach in the Black Forest on May 24th...
If you are still working on the airfare, try airlineconsolidator.com (try their toll-free # for the best rate NY-Frankfurt)....I got a direct flight from Pgh for just over $700 -approx $150 less than everyone elses quotes.
Have great fun!

For Freiburg, you can simply search for "Freiburg". (In general, you don't use the country names.) If you get to the choice screen, you'd want to enter "Freiburg(Brsg)Hbf", which is main station of Frieburg im Breisgau -- i.e., the one in the southwest corner. You can also use FRA to specify schedules from the Frankfurt airport as just Frankfurt will get you schedules from the main station.

As mentioned above, ICE trains are simply the top level trains in Germany. There's basically 4 levels of trains in Germany, ICE (Intercity Express), IC (Intercity), RE (Regional Express), and RB (Regional Bahn). They drop in price and speed in that order, but increase in where they go/stop. There's also some special deals only good on the RE/RE trains.

Enjoy your trip,
Paul