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New cruise terminal in Altona: ship ahoy! |
Hamburg had its best year to date for cruise ship visits in 2010. Over 100 cruise ships carrying more than 200,000 passengers dropped anchor at the Elbe river metropolis, including the Queen Mary 2, which paid four visits in total. And the numbers are projected to continue rising. It was obvious for a long time that HafenCity’s cruise terminal and its two berths could no longer cope with this onslaught alone, so work started in 2008 on a second cruise terminal in Hamburg-Altona at the Edgar-Engelhard quay, with the publicly owned Fischereihafenentwicklungsgesellschaft as lead builder.
On August 15 2009, after the quay wall was completed, the AIDAcara ship paid an inaugural visit to the Altona terminal, where there is a provisional berth while work feverishly continues on a permanent terminal building. The glass structure will be eight meters high and will cover 2,000 sq m. It will be equipped with flood protection measures and won’t be 15.50 m higher than sea level so that it doesn’t block the view of the Elbe from the Altonaer Balcony. The building’s highlight will be a so-called “Farewell-Deck,” a walk-on roof where up to 1,500 sightseers can wave to the arriving and departing passengers of the mega-ships, which are up to 300 m long. When the € 30 million prestigious project is completed for the start of the cruise season in March 2011, Altona and its new cruise terminal will finally be on the international seafaring charts. And for the first time, cries of “Ship ahoy” will be heard in two cruise centers in Hamburg.
›› www.hamburgcruisecenter.eu
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 For ordinary mortals who don’t get chauffeured to work in a stretch limousine, luckily there’s public transport. In and around Hamburg, the public transportation system is made up of an extensive network of trains, buses and ferries. And no matter which means of transportation you use, one ticket is sufficient, as the 33 local transportation companies including the Hamburger Hochbahn and the S-Bahn Hamburg, are all members of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (HVV) integrated public transport association. In addition to greater Hamburg, the neighboring counties of Pinneberg, Segeberg, Stormarn, Herzogtum Lauenburg, Lüneburg, Harburg and Stade in Schleswig-Holstein and Niedersachsen are also part of the HVV area, which spans 8,600 square kilometers. To make using the system as easy as possible for native Hamburg citizens and newcomers, there’s a large network of services and sales points at prominent locations as well as a telephone information hot line on 040/194 49, charged at local rates. On an average working day, the HVV transports 2 million people to all parts of the network on more than 680 commuter and regional trains, buses and ferries. The heart of Hamburg’s public transportation system is the suburban railway network that connects all the parts of town. If all the tracks had been laid in a straight line, they would go from Hamburg all the way to Munich, southern Germany. The Hamburg network has more than 800 kilometers of tracks. And more are being added over the next couple of years. The long-awaited S1 airport train, which runs every 10 minutes, went into service in December 2008 and the new subway line U4 will run to HafenCity starting in 2011. The HVV can offer another record, which no one can take away – it was founded in 1965 as the world’s first integrated public transport system
 For more information about the public transport network get the NEW IN THE CITY magazine |
 Residents of Hamburg can travel by ferry as well as by bus and train with an HVV ticket. Five HVV ferry lines cross the River Elbe in the port area and offer exciting sightseeing and excursions as well as normal transport trips. For example, you can take a nice round trip from the landing stage to Finkenwerder with the Linie 62 and enjoy a great view of Hamburg from the water without paying for a costly harbour tour. Just as rewarding is the trip from Blankenese to Cranz in the Alte Land (all the ferry services except this are run by the HADAG). If you want to explore Hamburg from its waterways, HADAG and the Alstertouristik offer many romantic cruises on the Alster, as well as the canals and waterways, naturally not for the same fares as the HVV but they are just as enjoyable.
Ferry lines
HVV-Hafenfähre Linie 61
Landungsbrücken - Neuhof
HVV-Hafenfähre Linie 62
Sandtorhöft - Landungsbrücken, Brücke 3 -
Finkenwerder
HVV-Hafenfähre Linie 64
Finkenwerder - Teufelsbrück
HVV-Hafenfähre Linie 73
Landungsbrücken - Oderhöft
HVV-Hafenfähre Linie 75
Zum Theater im Hafen
(„König der Löwen“)
Cruises
ATG Alster-Touristik GmbH
›› Neustadt, Anleger Jungfernstieg, Tel. 3 57 42 40
www.alstertouristik.de
HADAG
›› St. Pauli Fischmarkt 28, Tel. 3 11 70 70
www.hadag.de |
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