Duisburg

Introduction

Landscapepark Duisburg

© Utrecht

Duisburg is a German city of about half a million inhabitants, located in the western Ruhr Area in Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Neighbourhoods

Innenhafen

Since transportation has found new reliable ways many traditional harbours across Europe had to undergo massive changes. So has the Innenhafen (English: Inner harbour) in Duisburg. No longer sustainable for shipping and storing goods, planners had to think of new ideas of how to make use of this rather big inner city area. Massive warehouses for grains and other goods have either been demolished or turned into trendy lofts, smart offices and funky bars and restaurants, which has turned this once industrial and rough area into one of the city’s most sought after neighbourhoods with a buzzing nightlife. In the day you now might not find so many ships on the Rhine canal but a few leisurely pedalos and the odd mini yacht. On a sunny day you nearly feel like at the sea side here. And on a rainy day you can warm up over a latte, visit one of the museums or even Duisburg’s miniversion of Legoland - the Legoland Discovery Centre.

Sights and Activities

Legoland Discovery Centre

Since 2008 Duisburg has its own miniversion of Legoland, the Legoland Discovery Centre (Philosophenweg 23-25, 47051 Duisburg, Tel. 0049-(0) 203- 570 888 10). With branches in Manchester, Chicago and Berlin this awesome indoor model park has proved very successful for Lego fans from the ages 3-11 (and above….aren’t we all secretly really happy when our little ones need some help with building that yellow helicopter?). Located in Duisburg's Innenhafen and spread over 3,500 square metres and 3 floors this attraction offers lots of Lego. But not the way you know it from the kid’s Lego box at home: a pirate ship made of thousand Lego pieces, a Miniland with impressive Lego models of local landmark buildings, a jungle with Lego tigers and lions….oh, and a fun ride. On the more educational end you find a Lego factory, where kids can see how Lego is made, a 4-D cinema (featuring Lego animation films), and many possibilities to play and build things. It is a great day out when the weather lets you down but also when the sun is shining.

Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

A unique industrial heritage park featuring old blast furnaces, climbing walls, diving center, and beautiful light installations at night.

Zoo Duisburg

One of Germany’s oldest and most diverse zoos, famous for its dolphinarium and koala bears.

Getting There

By Plane

Duisburg is located within the triangle Dortmund-Düsseldorf-Nijmegen (Netherlands) and as such profits from having three (major) airports within half an hour drive or so:

• Düsseldorf International Airport (DUS) is a large airport with over 18.3 million passengers (2008), making it the third largest airport in Germany. The airport is located 9 kilometres from the city centre of Düsseldorf and is the major airport for the entire area. Because of the good connections and proximity to the Netherlands, a lot of Dutch people living in the southeast of the country prefer to use this airport.
• Airport Weeze is located near to the Dutch border. Its main user is Ryanair. But also some smaller airlines use this airport.
• Dortmund Airport - Easyjet flies to Barcelona, Budapest, London, Krakow and Thessaloniki, while Air Berlin flies to Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Nuremberg, Mallorca and Tenerife. Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Gdansk, Katowice, Kiev, Lviv, Poznan, Sofia, Timisoara, Warsaw and Wroclaw, and Istanbul, Munich, Palma de Mallorca, Salzburg and Split, are served by Wizz Air and Germanwings respectively.

By Train

Duisburg Hauptbahnhof (central station) is the main junction of regional, nationwide and international railway lines.

Deutsche Bahn offers hourly ICE high-speed trains from Berlin (under 4 hours), Hanover (2:15), Munich (5 hours) and Frankfurt (1:45). Moreover there are two-hourly ICEs from Amsterdam (2 hours), Stuttgart (under 3 hours), as well as intercity trains from Hamburg (3½ hours) and Bremen (2½ hours). Four times a day, the Thalys from Paris (4 hours) and Bruxelles (2½ hours) stops in Duisburg.

Moreover there is a wide range of frequently running local trains linking Duisburg with other cities in the Rhine-Ruhr region (VRR network), e.g. from Essen in 10-15 minutes, Düsseldorf in 15 minutes, Dortmund in 35-40 minutes.

By Car

Duisburg is part of the Ruhr's very dense Autobahn network (located on the junctions of A3, A40, A42 and A59), which is however prone to traffic jams.

By Bus

Flixbus serves Duisburg. Buses are usually comfortable enough but slower than trains if usually cheaper.

Getting Around

By Public Transport

Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft AG (DVG) operates a network of four tram and 32 bus lines. The U79 tram is a joint venture of the Düsseldorf and the Duisburg transport company, linking both cities. Moreover, Duisburg is part of the S-Bahn Rhein-Ruhr network operating urban rail both within the city and linking it with its neighbours Düsseldorf, Oberhausen, Mülheim and Essen. VRR combi-tickets are valid for all means of local transport (rail, tram, bus).

Eat

Currywurst, Pommes Schranke

Drink

Duisburg is the home of König Pilsener (KöPi), one of Germany's best-selling mainstream beers. One can buy it in supermarket, kiosks and in almost every restaurant.
There are two small breweries producing their own beer: Webster Brauhaus and Brauhaus Urfels. Both of them have restaurants too.
Sinalco, a lemonade brand quite known throughout Germany (claiming to be the oldest brand of carbonated soft drinks in Europe) is produced in Duisburg.

Sleep

Budget

Upscale

Learn

• University of Duisburg-Essen

Keep Connected

Internet

Internet cafes (rates €1.50 to €5 per hour) are starting to become less common due to widespread offers of free wifi by shops, restaurants or cafes. Sometimes it requires minimum consumption but usually it's free within the premises. Phone shops will often offer internet access, too. In general hotels offer internet access. In several cities, projects exist to provide free "community" hotspots for wireless networking. Passenger lounges at some airports and central railway stations also provide internet access to their customers.

Several pre-paid SIMs allow Internet access for a monthly flat fee, for example those available at Tchibo coffee stores (o2 network, €10/month limited to 500 MB, €20/month for 5 GB) or Aldi (E-Plus network). A regular O2 sim card, which can be used for calls and text messages, is €15 and another €15 buys 1GB of data valid for 1 month. Vodafone offers a prepaid sim card for €25 which includes €22.5 of credit, out of which you can get 300 MB of data for 2 days for €15 and be left with €7.5 of credit.

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

The international call prefix in Germany is 00. To dial out of Germany, dial 00, followed by country code, area code, and the telephone number (for example 00 44 1234 567890). If you're using a mobile phone, simply add the plus sign "+" before the country code to call out of Germany (for example +44 1234 567890). The general emergency number is 112 and the additional number for less emergent issues for police is 110.

Mobile phone coverage on the four networks (T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus and o2) is excellent across the whole country. UMTS (3G data and HSDPA) and EDGE is also available. UMTS is still somewhat limited to urban areas. All mobile providers use GSM technology on the 900 and 1800 MHz frequency ranges. If you stay for a longer period of time, consider buying a prepaid phone card from one of the mobile phone companies; you won't have trouble finding a T-Mobile (in a "T-Punkt"), Vodafone, E-Plus or O2 store in any major shopping area. In most supermarket chains (for example ALDI), there are prepaid SIM cards from their own virtual providers available. These are normally quite cheap to buy, but expensive for international calls (around €1–2/min), but incoming calls are always free and SMS cost around €0.09–0.19. They are available at: Aldi, Lidl, Penny, Netto, Tchibo, Rewe, toom. A registration via Internet or (expensive) phone call is necessary after buying to activate the SIM card.

The cheapest way to call abroad from Germany is to use the internet cafés run by immigrants. They sell special calling cards that give the best rate to certain countries as well as offer cheap international calls from phone booths. It is also the cheapest way to call landlines in Germany.

Post

Germany's postal system is very efficient, their logistics branch DHL is one of the best companies in this field world-wide, with domestic post or within a radius of 400 kilometres, send within a day. The website of Deutsche Post has an online calculator for postage fees as well as a post office finder. Stamps are available at post offices and sometimes at newsagents or shops selling postcards. Also stamp vending machines can be found at a lot of places around the cities. You can purchase every stamp you need from this machines. They are unique as they accept every coin from 1 cent to 2 euro but change is only given in stamps. It costs about €40 to send a small package to Australia and €1.70 to send an old-fashioned letter to any place in the world outside of Europe. Within Germany, sending postcards costs €0.45 and standard letters €0.55, within Europe it is €0.65 for a postcard, standard letters to places in Europe cost €0.75. Outside Europe, the prices for sending a postcard or standard letter are €1 and €1.70 respectively. Although you will find the old post offices (mainly in the city centre), most of the smaller neighbourhood post offices are part of a small tobacco shop or grocery store. For larger package, you might consider competitive private companies like UPS, DHL or TNT.

External Links

• Official Website