Information about Hamburg

Clothes

During spring, autumn and winter the weather in Hamburg is usually cold and moist. If you are not used to this conditions, you should take an water shed "outdoor"-jacket which protects you from moist with you. Temperature in december ranges from -7° C to +7°C.

Party-Time

General there is no curfew in Hamburg. So pubs, discos and other locations like this might stay open the whole night. Also the dance ban takes only place on days not belonging to the congress (Karfreitag, Karsamstag, Volkstrauertag, Totensonntag).

Weapon free zones

Since december 2007 the region around the Reeperbahn and St. Georg (east of central station) are so called "weapon free zones". It is strictly forbidden to carry weapons in these regions. The definition of weapons also includes pocket knifes, tear gas packs and riot sticks. So please leave your "leathermen" somewhere else if you like to visit one of this places. During the weekends and in the nights to public hollidays it's also forbidden to carry glas bottles in these regions. If you don't want to run into trouble - leave this stuff somewhere else.

Save your money

If you like to visit the Reeperbahn, please leave your credit or EC card in your hotel. Every now and then there are cases where prostitutes get their visitors to hand them their EC cards and secret numbers. No one would be too surprised to hear that there are some unauthorized withdrawals afterwards. So please leave your EC/credit card at home. Hormones and alcohol are a bad combination to stay clear minded.

If you like to visit the fireworks at the harbour in new year's eve: please leave as much money at home as possible. Pocket scrabs like this crowd of people.

Public transport

Hamburg has two(three) tube systems driven either by the "Deutsche Bahn" (S-Bahn) or the "Hamburger Hochbahn AG" (U-Bahn) which is a company run by the state Hamburg. There are also four types of buses:

* fast lane busses: Numbering 3X
* metro busses: Numbering [12]X
* regional busses: Numbering XXX
* night busses: Numbering: 6XX

Which are organized in a compound system. So you don't have to pay seperate, however: you'll have to pay a higher fee for the fast lane busses and (perhaps) the night busses.

The night busses run in the nights to work days and meet - with some exceptions - at the "Rathausmarkt". There is also a circular line - 600 - which meets all lines north of the Elbe at roughly the same radius. Usually the night busses run every thirty minutes. In the nights to weekends or public holidays the tubes and metro busses run the whole night - every twenty minutes. If you don't take a really short trip - so called "Kurzstrecke" - it's often cheaper to buy a 9 o'clock day ticket. This is valid from 9 o'clock (am) on the day bought to the following day 6 o'clock (am). To check out your local travelling the page of the transport services might help. There you will also find a map depicting the tube system of hamburg.

We hope that you'll enjoy your visit.