Hamburg Airport ground transport

Hamburg's airport opened in 1911 and is the oldest still operating on its original site anywhere in Germany, which is a pleasing fact and not a practical one. What matters is that the S1 line runs directly under the terminals: €3.70, twenty-five minutes to Hauptbahnhof, every ten minutes from early morning to past midnight. There is one local peculiarity worth knowing before you board in the other direction. The S1 <strong>splits at Ohlsdorf</strong> — the front carriages carry on to the airport, the rear ones go to Poppenbüttel. Sitting in the wrong half is the single most common mistake visitors make with Hamburg's transport, and while the displays and announcements do warn you, they do it in German first. Coming from the airport this does not arise; going back, it does. A taxi to the centre costs €25 to €35 and takes twenty to thirty minutes, on a metered tariff starting around €3.20 with the per-kilometre rate falling on longer runs. Hamburg itself is a port city with more bridges than Venice and Amsterdam combined, a warehouse district of red brick that holds UNESCO status, and a concert hall built on top of a 1960s cocoa store that became the city's emblem the moment it opened. The Reeperbahn is twenty minutes from the station and is exactly what its reputation suggests. Lübeck, an hour east by regional train, is the other reason people fly here.