My husband and I plan on making a day visit from Cologne to Aachen in December. We would like to take the bus, as the bus stop is closer to the Altstadt and cathedral than the Aachen train station. In Cologne we will be walking distance from the Bahnhof. Is there a bus leaving the main train station in Cologne, or must we catch the bus farther afield. I'm thinking maybe the train would be easier.
Posted by
Chicago
7836 posts
Aachen is pretty small. The old town did not seem that far from the train station about 6 blocks or 1.1 kilometers.
Just curious which company operates the bus service?
Posted by
Paradise
6637 posts
Aachen, Aachener Dom (Tourismus)
Use this as your destination station at the DB site - you'll get instructions to take the train to Aachen Hbf station and to walk to the Dom from there.
Tomorrow's options include the 8:48 RE train from Cologne; it takes 56 minutes to reach Aachen Hbf by direct train. If you click on "Details" for this option, you'll see that the walk is 16 minutes. And then you can click on "map view", zoom way in on the town center, and see the walking route as well as the train route.
The 24StundenTicket 5Personen should come up as a ticket option. It is a day pass costing €43.40 - use it for the round trip. It's valid on the local and regional trains. It can also be used for additional transport by bus or U-bahn within Aachen or Cologne the same day, or for an additional outing by train within the region of validity, for no addtional charge.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10188 posts
We took a bus from the Aachen train station to Charlemagne's chapel but walked back.
Posted by
Augsburg, Bavaria
2332 posts
Just curious which company operates the bus service?
I'm also curious. www.busliniensuche.de doesn't show a bus connection between the center of Köln and the center of Aachen. There are a few Flixbuses from Cologne airport with destination Aachen main station.
Posted by
OP
Burlington, North Carolina
59 posts
There is actually a Flixbus leaving Köln Hbf at 1:05 p.m. and arriving at Aachen Henricstrasse at 2:50. I think it is simpler to take the the train from Köln Hbf (I saw a listing from the main station) and arriving at Aachen Hbf. The train costs more, but we will have a German Rail Pass Twin.
Will the rail pass be good for any train leaving the station or just specific trains?
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
32742 posts
The 24Stunden mentioned by Russ is valid on any regional train (not IC/ICE/EC) as he mentioned.
Posted by
Augsburg, Bavaria
2332 posts
There is actually a Flixbus leaving Köln Hbf at 1:05 p.m. and arriving at Aachen Henricstrasse at 2:50.
According to the Flixbus website that bus leaves from Leverkusen, 20 km north of Koeln.