Travel from Frankfort airport to Stasbourg

We are also in ou 60's and did this exact trip this past December. We purchased our train tickets in advance - big savings. The train station in the Frankfurt airport was easy to find. Had plenty of time to get our luggage and make the train

No problems at all

If you are going to use a transportation website (like the Bahn), note that the city in Germany is Frankfurt (am Main), not Frankfort, which is the capital of Kentucky.

Advance train tickets for FRA to Strasbourg from the Bahn are risky because you cannot accurately predict when your flight will arrive in Frankfurt and the tickets are train specific and have limited refundability and exchangeability. If your flight is late arriving and you miss your booked train, it will cost more than if you just got full fare tickets to start with. Full fare exchangeable tickets from FRA to Strasbourg by ICE are about 60€/per. The trip takes a little over two hours. If you select "without ICE", you get trips taking 3½ hrs and costing 52€. If you select "only local transport" the trip will be by regional transportation, cost 43,60€/per, and take 4 hours.

I would get tickets from the Bahn website. Depending on trains used, you might be able to get tickets from the French Rail website. Resellers like RailEurope will probably be more expensive.

There is also a Lufthansa bus from FRA to Strasbourg, but you have to reserve a place on a specific bus, and I can't find out what happens to your ticket if you miss the bus.

Karen,

As Lee mentioned, it's usually risky to pre-purchase rail tickets to connect with an inbound flight as flights can be late for a variety of reasons so there's always the possibility of missing the train. Having said that, you appear to have two options.....

1. Pre-purchase tickets and take a chance that you'll able to connect with your booked train. You should be able to also book on the Capitaine Train website as they deal with trains in both Germany and France.
2. Wait until you arrive and purchase tickets at the airport. The current DB website shows most of the trains departing from the Fernbahnhof in the airport, which is used for the long distance trains (there's also a Regionalbahnhof in another part of the airport). There's a ticket office at the Fernbahnhof and you can purchase either from an agent or from an automated Kiosk.

The trip from the Frankfurt airport to Strasbourg is about 2H:10M, with one or two changes.

There are no direct trains from FRA to Strasbourg. Unless you take a TGV from Mannheim or Karlsruhe to Strasbourg, your connection will probably one or two legs between the airport and Offenburg, Baden-Württemberg, and a train run by the local Verkehrsverbund from Offenburg ½ hour across the river to Strasbourg. Since the trip is almost entirely in Germany, I'm not sure you'll get the best price from French Rail. Use the Bahn website.

German Rail wants 59,60€ ($66.77) for the trip to Strasbourg using the ICE to Offenburg. SNCF wants 87,40€ ($97.92), RailEurope wants $92. (German Rail wants slightly more for the connection using the TGV; both SNCF and R/E want less than their ICE/Reg price, but still more than German Rail's price). Ken, what is Captaine Train's price? (They won't give me a price without my giving them my email, something I'm not willing to do.)

And, if you turn off "including ICE", you can take a longer (3½ hr) connection through Mainz for 51,60€ ($57.81). An all regional connection takes as little as 4 hrs and cost 43,60€ ($48.85).

Since the German DB site is generally easy to use, that would be my first choice for an online, advance-discount ticket purchase, going direct to the source, and keeping in mind the nonrefundability and exchange limitations of discounted tickets. You can't buy a ticket more than 91 days in advance.

Buying a full-fare ticket in the station is also simple and worry-free; trains don't sell out, since assigned seats are not required (but buses can).

If you will have more travel around Germany, then a German Rail Pass can be a good value, starting from $180 per person for 3 days of travel, and easy to use, with no reservations required (but buy a separate ticket from Kehl to Strasbourg for about $5 in the station). You can't buy a rail pass more than 6 months in advance.

Hi,

I suggest taking the ICE Frankfurt Hbf to Offenburg, change to the S-Bahn to get to Strasbourg. As pointed out above, you do have different choices open to you.

I read Fred's response about Frankfurt Hbf to Strasbourg and thought, no, she's coming from the airport. Then I went back and read the original posting and realized that's not what she said - only Frankfurt to Strasbourg (although since she is from Dallas, it probably is from the airport). However, if she does happen to be coming from the Hbf, and will be there long enough to assure getting on a specified train, an advance purchase ticket would be in order.

Looking at Frankfurt Hbf to Strasbourg I noted that three months in advance, there are not a lot special fares available to Strasbourg. There is a special fare to Mannheim and the Bahn IC bus from there to Strasbourg for as low as 19€/per. However, if you put in Kehl (across the river from Strasbourg on the train line from Offenburg) as the destination there are a lot more Saving Fare tickets available (I found one for 45€ for two people). The additional fare from Kehl to Strasbourg is 4,10€/per.

There are considerable savings if you get a ticket in advance. I made a similar journey in 2013 ( Frankfurt to Gengenbach). Fare for the two of us was 29 Euro 92 days in advance. We selected a train 3 hours after our landing time. Unfortunately, our plane was more than 3 hours late. Our walk-up price was 102 Euro. We gambled and lost, but we lost only 29 Euro while trying to save 73. Only you can decide if the gamble is worth it.

If you haven't bought your flights yet, you can add that Lufthansa bus as a "flight segment" to you airline ticket. It may not even cost more than flying to Frankfurt, and this way, if you miss the bus because your arriving flight is late, they will put you on the next bus instead (no extra fee).

The "airport code" for the Strasbourg bus stop (next to the train station) is XER (may only work on Lufthansa's website).

"if you miss the bus because your arriving flight is late, they will put you on the next bus instead (no extra fee)."

Harold, please provide us with the link to the website where it states that. I wanted to recommend the Lufthansa bus earlier, but could not find anywhere on the website that it indicated that you could take a later bus if you missed your reserved one. And, I'm sure, if they do, it would be on a space available basis.

There are six buses a day to Strasbourg. Cost is 49€ per adult.

Thank you for the replies. I located the Bahn site as well as trying to find more info on the Lufthansa bus. If the plane is on time we will arrive Frankfurt a little after 11 am. We are anxious to get to Strasbourg as soon as possible. I have some weather concerns since we will be traveling in December. Should plan to book our flight a day earlier and stay at a Frankfurt airport hotel prior to traveling to Strasbourg? We have three nights in Strasbourg before traveling to Nuremburg.