Cologne Travel Forum

Hi all!
I am about to travel in Monday from Cologne-Bonn airport to the central railway station in Cologne. I have some questions:
1. As far as I know, I will land in Terminal 1 (because I am flying with Germanwings), so how can I get to the railway station which is under terminal 2 in order to get the train?
2. How do I buy a ticket and do I have to validate it somewhere?
3. How do I know which train do I need - I say different S13 lines with different routes?!
4. How do I know Exactly where I get off? I don't speak ANY German at all :(
All relevant information will be useful ;)
Regards!

1. There is a free shuttle bus between terminals.
2. You can buy a ticket (select the button "Preisstufe 1b") for about €2.30 from a machine or the ticket office and no you don't need to validate it.
3. I think you may be reading a map wrongly, there is only 1 S13 S-Bahn line that passes by the airport, you just need to make sure you are going in the direction Köln HANSARING: see blue line on here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S-BahnNRW.svg.
4. I'm sure you will easily recognise the main station, I think it's the 4th one from the airport and if you are in doubt there is bound to be someone you can ask.

4. Do not worry. There will be station signs which the train passes as it slows down. Listen for 'Kerln', which is what Cologne sounds like in German, and look for 'Koln' with an umlaut (two small marks) over the 'o'.

There may also be an electronic display within the carriage.

You will also find that most people (whether working at the station/airport or just passengers) will speak at least a little English, and many will have excellent English.

Koln Main railway station is right next to the Cathedral, so any tourist signs for the 'Dom' will also help.
German for main railway station is Hop barn hof (that is phonetic and it is one word - Hauptbahnhof).
You will have no problem speaking English, just learn a few basic words as a gesture. Danka (danke) for thanks, gooten taag (guten Tag) for good day.
The kolsch people are rather more casual than their Bavarian cousins :-) IMHO and you should manage OK.
Don't miss Fruh Hofbrauhaus, behind the cathedral.

1. You can walk, it is not very far. Exit the baggage retrival area and follow the signs with a train (if I remember correctly it is green with a train symbol and it says Bahnhof/Rail station), it will take you about 5 to 10 minutes to walk. Here a map of the airport.
http://www.airport-cgn.de/data/files/downloads/terminalwegweiser.pdf

2. After walking through big glass doors, you see mobile stairs on the right and ticket machines on the left side. You don't need to validate the ticket (but I am not 100% sure). To check if you need validation watch out for a little yellow machine with a slid, this is the validation machine. If you ticket does not fit, it does not need validation. Go down the mobile stairs to the platform.
3. There are huge boards announcing the train and it destination.
4. All stations have big signs telling you the name of the station and inside the train the various upcoming stations are shown on a running board. Köln Hbf or Köln Hauptbahnhof stands for Main station Cologne.

just some additional infos: The airport is laid out like a half circle and the railway station cuts it like a string you put into a bow with lifts at the Western ends of each terminal -- all you need to do is walk towards the end of Terminal 1 where you will find the lifts down to the railway station. The more you end up in the middle, the more does it make sense to walk to Terminal 2 and use the lifts there. Worst case, you have the above mentioned 5 minutes. Cologne/Bonn is an extremely pleasant small airport.

There are ticket machines for local transport tickets (VRS), they do have an English menu. This is actually your biggest task.

You can't go wrong with the trains. The only possible mistake would be to take the wrong direction (towards Troisdorf or Frankfurt) -- all S 13 trains and all other trains will call at Cologne Hbf. The station before Cologne Hbf is Messe/Deutz and you cross the Rhine bridge right after leaving that station -- the Hbf is exactly on the other side of the bridge.