Cologne to Frankfurt Airport
 

In looking at the Deutsche Bahn website, I see that there is an ICE train several times a day going from the main Cologne rail station to the Frankfurt airport in just under an hour. It's a tempting option for me to spend my last night in Germany in Cologne. My bad experiences with rail transit here in California, however, have left me wary. If my flight back to the U.S. were about 2:00 p.m. or so, how much time should I allow to leave Cologne and make it to the airport with plenty of time for check-in? Thank you.

Well it takes one hour from Koln to the Frankfurt Airport station - the Fernbahnhof, long-distance train station, which though in the airport, is quite a walk from your gate. Leaving at 9am should be fine. There have been a few train strikes in Germany recently, so pay attention to that. These trains go over the new high-speed line between Koln and Frankfurt and not the older more scenic line that went along the Rhine. You see little on the new line except for trees planted as a wind block and tunnels; too bad you don't have time to take the old route that goes through the lovely Rhine gorge.

How long does the old scenic route take? How to I book that one?

I just took this very trip in June 2005. The ICE takes exactly 57 minutes from the station in Cologne to the airport station in Frankfurt and makes two brief stops in between. This is a much shorter time than the old 2-2 1/2 hours trip. The route is so efficient that Lufthansa has discontinued flights between the Cologne-Bonn airport and Frankfurt.

A word of caution: make CERTAIN you are getting on the right train because the "old" route is still in service.

The trains are punctual, clean, and reliable. You'll feel great as you whizz by the autobahn at 160-180 mph as the auto traffic has slowed to a creep.

Enjoy it!

To book the "old" route: check schedules and train NUMBERS on the Bahn site and you'll know which train to book.

The "old" route usually includes stops in Koblenz and sometimes Mainz as well as Boppard and Bingen.

The "new" route usually only has stops at Cologne Deutz and sometimes Siegburg/Bonn.