Leipzig

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Leipzig
<map lat='51.34905637539417' lng='12.192935943603516' zoom='13' view='3' />
Information
Country: Germany
State:
Coat of arms of Saxony.png
Saxony
Population: 587.857
Licence plate: L
Major roads: A 9 A 14
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Leipzig is the biggest city in the German Bundesland Saxony, and is famous for its alternative scene. Check out Plagwitz, Südvorstadt, the "Eisenbahnstraße" (most dangerous street in Germany according to some newspapers) and Connewitz if you're there.

Hitchhiking out

North towards Berlin, South towards München A 9

Option 1

Take the bus #131 from the city center to Dölzig and get out at Südstraße, one stop before the Nova Eventis center. You can hitchhike directly from the bus stop. Try to find your ride here towards Berlin or Munich! Beware, that bus doesn't run very often.

Option 2

It's also possible to get to the spot described above with tram #7 in direction Böhlitz-Ehrenberg. Get out at the tram stop Georg-Schwartz-Strasse/Merseburger Strasse. From there, walk back some 10m towards the main road and walk right towards the Aral petrol station, across the road from which you can catch a ride to the A9. If you don't like the spot, follow the road for 200m until you passed a Lidl supermarket, and after that some meters further you'll find a bus stop (Lindenau Friedhof). From there you can easily hitchhike a ride towards Dölzig and/or the motorway. Make sure to get out at the last traffic lights before the motorway. There's a bus stop where you can hitchhike easily. A sign might be useful. Hitchhiking ~800m further directly at the on-ramp is pretty dangerous, there's no place for cars to stop and traffic passes by pretty fast.

Option 3

You can take a train from the Main Station, Leipzig-Gohlis, Leipzig-Coppiplatz, Leipzig-Möckern or Leipzig-Leutzsch (Regional Express "RB") that goes to "Weißenfels". Get off at "Rückmarsdorf". From there you walk north straight up to the big street that leads to the A 9. It's about 300 m and the way is intuitive. You can either start from there or follow the street westwards for about 500 m where you find a car seller for Renault. There is plenty of space to stop and pick you up. If people only go to Dölzig take the lift. The spot at the Busstaion Südstraße (first option) is slightly better. The great advantage of this option is that you get to Rückmarsdorf very fast. Especially if you live close to one of the trainstops mentioned above you're ready to start hitkchhiking in some 10 minutes (vs. 27 minutes busride from the Main Station in Bus #131). Remember that the train only goes once an hour (March 2015: From the Main Station at xx:47 h from track 6).

North towards Berlin and Magdeburg/Hamburg A 14

There is a brilliant spot to ask people for lifts at an "Aral"-petrol station which is the last one before the Autobahn A 14 that also leads onto the A 9 to Berlin.

Take tram 16 with or without a 2,40 Euro-Ticket in the direction of Messegelände and get off at "Hornbach Baumarkt" from here it's a 15min walk to the station but it's worth it. Walk in the same direction as the tram and take an immediate right onto "Dübener Landstraße" along the parking lot of the big hardware store. After passing the bridge over the B2 it becomes Nathusiusstraße. Keep walking straight until you reach Ztschortauer Straße where you turn left and walk another 300 metres until you see the "Aral"-petrol station on your left.

Asking people for a lift towards Berlin on the A 9 or towards Magdeburg on the A 14 (which is also the way to go for Hamburg) usually works just fine here. The first rest stop going north from here will be Köckern Ost on the A 9, that isn't too far. On the A 14, it is Plötzetal Ost which is past Halle. Most of the A14 traffic goes to Halle so you might want to get the ride anyway and get off at the non-gas-station rest area that is on the A14, before Halle but after the branch-off to Berlin.

East towards Dresden A 14 A 38

Spot in Leipzig described in Option 2 for hitchhiking North or South

Option 1

Take a tram to "Permoser Str./ Torgauer Str." (3/3E direction "Taucha"; or Bus 90 direction "Paunsdorfcenter"; check here: www.lvb.de/timetable). You walk some 50 meters along "Permoser Straße" (the one without tram tracks) and start hitchhiking from there. Drivers already see you from the traffic light and can stop easily on the "white lines". While heading east you'll also find gas stations to ask people directly.

Option 2

Take a tram to the stop "Paunsdorfer Alle/Permoser Strasse". Show a sign saying "Dresden" and find a good spot on the street towards east which is close to the motorway junction already. There are mixed reports about this spot.

Option 3

Take the Tram #15 or #2 from the city center towards Meusdorf and get out at the last station, which is called Meusdorf. Go 250 Meters further to the next bus stop. This is the best spot to Dresden via A 38 and A 14/A 4.

Option 4

Onramp to the highway A14, at the crossing of B6 and A14. There is no sidestrip, but it is barely possible for cars to stop.

Onramp to A14 at the crossing with B6, east-end of Permoserstraße


Option 5: service area Muldental

In direction Dresden you then have a service area called "Muldental" since a lot of people turn of before Dresden so that you can use also the rather local traffic (to Grimma or further).

West towards Erfurt, Köln, Belgium A 4

File:CraigChristmasHitch.jpg
Santa Claus Craig hitching bus stop near Leipzig West (A 9).

When heading to Belgium highway number 4 is a decent option. There are no comfortable ways (other than luck) to get on the highway to Kassel A 38. Though if there's somebody taking you to the A 38 make sure you get a long lift. There is only one service station Rohnetal Nord before reaching the A 7 near Göttingen/Kassel.

You can take bus 131 from Main Station (Leipzig Hauptbahnhof) or Merseburgerstrasse that will take you all the way close to the A 9 (alight at B181/Dölzig). At the bus stop you can easily get a lift in all directions. All day long heavy traffic yay ;-) Craig's waiting times average at 15 mins for direction Cologne (West) or Nuremberg (South), 20 mins direction Berlin (North).

First you have to go south on the A 9, use a sign "A9 Süd", there's a gas station on the highway 30 km south from Leipzig called "Osterfeld". There you can find a ride going West on the A 4 . Ask for people going at least to Erfurt. The only service area with gas station on the A 4 before Erfurt is called "Eichelborn" and is located BEYOND Jena. The on-ramp on the side away from Leipzig is slightly more spacious (but not spacious) and there was a little more traffic when guaka was hitching from there on Thursday around noon.

Right after getting onto the A 4 there's a restaurant (but no gas station) called "Teufelstal" that's okay during the day (guaka found a long ride to almost Giessen from there).

Hitching In

When coming through the A 14 it is fairly easy to get off at Leipzig Nord-Ost or Leipzig-Ost, where you have possibilities for the driver to turn around and the tram is within 1 km reach. If coming from south-east, lot of drivers go in via A 38. In both cases you can use the directions given in the two optionjs for getting onto A 14 direction Dresden. Otherwise, options are the airport where a train is going regularly into the city.

If traveling the A 9, you can best get off at Leipzig-West. The driver can go off to "Einkaufszentrum", then let you out at Nova Eventis. There you can easily get a car to the center just hitchhike anywhere near the exit for Leipzig at the parking with a sign "LE".

Hitchhiker Craig would rather recommend to ask drivers going off to Leipzig. The road directions are not separated on that side anymore and there is a perfect spot (bus stop) for hitching into the city plus drivers can easily make u-turn going back to the highway. Korn mentions, that you can catch a ride from here even in the night pretty easy. If you get off earlier and don´t want to walk that far, there is also a huge keeping area on the right side, after you left the highway and underpass the bridge. It is also the first possible point for cars to make a u-turn and get back on the highway.

Public transport - Riding with and without a ticket

the information below does not apply to the S-Bahn city train. See Deutsche Bahn instead

Using public transportation without a ticket is fairly easy in Leipzig.

Getting caught without a ticket:

  • fine is 60 EUR, payable by bank transfer in about 10 days
  • I don't know if there are special rules if you possess a non-German ID

Anyway...

  • Ticket machines outside trams give you unstamped tickets
  • You can validate tickets in both trams and buses, the machines beep when you do so (check if there is a ticket stamping machine in the rear of the bus)
  • Inside most trams, there's a ticket machine that gives you a stamped ticket (just hanging around there won't serve as excuse if you get busted)
  • Bus drivers also sell stamped tickets
  • You could buy a (short range, if you're on low money) ticket and keep it unstamped
  • Most transportation rules for German public transport are along the lines that you have to present a valid ticket if you're asked to do so
  • You need to get the ticket stamped before the traffic control reaches you
  • If you've got an unstamped ticket, you can argue that you didn't know about validating it - the tourist act usually works
  • After 20:00, you usually need to get in buses at the front and show your ticket to the bus driver

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