Katowice

Hamburg Central

Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in Hamburg, Germany. The Hamburg Central Station （Hamburg HBF） is operated by DB and has an average of 480,000 passengers per day. The station is one of Germany's major transportation hubs, connecting long-distance intercity expressways to the city's U-Bahn and S-Bahn rapid transit networks.

It is located in the heart of Hamburg in the Hamburg-Mitte district. Hamburg Central Station is a direct station (not a terminal) with 1-14 platforms (Gleis) under huge historical glass and steel buildings. The platform is located below the street and enters from the lobby on the crossover street. The ticket office, DB lounge and luggage lockers are located in the flyover hall. There is a train poster on each platform (Wagenstandsanzeiger) telling you where to stand so that when the train comes in, you can get on the right place. The station has a large DB ticket office that sells domestic and international tickets. There are ATMs around the station. If you need to leave your luggage, you can use the luggage locker.

Free WiFi is available at the station. There are many dining options in the station, including McDonald's.

Hamburg Central Station is one of the largest railway stations in northern Germany, connecting Denmark with Central Europe. Berlin, Frankfurt, continue to Stuttgart and Munich, and continue to the Ruhr area and Cologne's Bremen have permanent InterCityExpress lines.

The northern ICE train connects Hamburg to Aarhus and Copenhagen in Denmark and Kiel. There are also several intercity passenger train routes. The station is a hub to and from Scandinavia. In addition to intercity rail services, the station is also the intersection of urban rapid transit systems: Hamburg S-Bahn (suburban railway) and Hamburg U-Bahn (underground network). The station is located in Wallring in the heart of Hamburg, between Altstadt and St. Georg. Nearby is the Deutsches Schauspielhaus theatre, art gallery and museum of applied art.

The station is located in the heart of a busy shopping district.

If you have a first-class long-distance ticket for the DB train or its partner railway, you can use the DB first class lounge, free tea, coffee, beer and snacks as well as WiFi. Follow the signs to the DB Lounge. It is usually open daily from 06:00-22:00.

Katowice (UK: KAT-ə-VEET-sə, US: KAHT-, Polish: [katɔˈvitsɛ] ; officially Miasto Katowice; Silesian: Katowicy; German: Kattowitz) is a city in southern Poland, with a city-proper population of 294,510 (as of 2018) making it the eleventh-largest city in Poland and is the center of the Katowice metropolitan area, which has approximately 2 million people. Throughout the mid-18th century, Katowice had developed into a village upon the discovery of rich coal reserves in the area. In 1742 the First Silesian War transferred Upper Silesia, including Katowice, to Prussia. Subsequently, from the second half of the 18th century, many German or Prussian craftsmen, merchants and artists began to settle in the region, which had been inhabited mostly by Poles over the past hundreds of years. Simultaneously Silesia experienced the influx of the first Jewish settlers. In the first half of the 19th century, intensive industrialization transformed local mills and farms into industrial steelworks, mines, foundries and artisan workshops. This also contributed to the establishment of companies and eventual rapid growth of the city. At the same time, Katowice became linked to the railway system with the first train arriving at the main station in 1847.The outbreak of World War I was favourable for Katowice due to the prospering steel industry. Following Germany's defeat and the Silesian Uprisings, Katowice and parts of Upper Silesia were annexed by the Second Polish Republic. Poland was then backed by the Geneva Convention and the ethnic Silesian minority. On 3 May 1921, the Polish army entered Katowice and the Polish administration took control. The city became the capital of the autonomous Silesian Voivodeship as well as the seat of the Silesian Parliament and Committee of Upper Silesia. After the plebiscite, many former German citizens emigrated, however a vibrant German community remained until the end of World War II. In 1939, after the Wehrmacht seized the town, Katowice and the provinces were incorporated into the Third Reich. The town was eventually liberated by the Soviet army on 27 January 1945.Katowice is a center of science, culture, industry, business, trade, and transportation in Upper Silesia and southern Poland, and the main city in the Upper Silesian Industrial Region. Katowice lies within an urban zone, with a population of 2,746,460 according to Eurostat, and also part of the wider Silesian metropolitan area, with a population of 5,294,000 according to the European Spatial Planning Observation Network.Today, the city is considered as an emerging metropolis. The whole metropolitan area is the 16th most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union with an output amounting to $114.5 billion.Katowice is the seat of the Polish National Radio Symphony and Orchestra. It also hosts the finals of Intel Extreme Masters, an Esports video game tournament. In 2015, Katowice joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and was named a UNESCO City of Music.

Hamburg (English: , German: [ˈhambʊʁk] ; Low Saxon: Hamborg), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; Low Saxon: Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg), is the second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and 8th largest city in the European Union with a population of over 1.8 million. One of Germany's 16 federal states, it is surrounded by Schleswig-Holstein to the north and Lower Saxony to the south. The city's metropolitan region is home to more than five million people. Hamburg lies on the River Elbe and two of its tributaries, the River Alster and the River Bille. The official name reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League and a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a fully sovereign city state, and before 1919 formed a civic republic headed constitutionally by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten. Beset by disasters such as the Great Fire of Hamburg, North Sea flood of 1962 and military conflicts including World War II bombing raids, the city has managed to recover and emerge wealthier after each catastrophe. Hamburg is Europe's third-largest port. Major regional broadcaster NDR, the printing and publishing firm Gruner + Jahr and the newspapers Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are based in the city. Hamburg is the seat of Germany's oldest stock exchange and the world's oldest merchant bank, Berenberg Bank. Media, commercial, logistical, and industrial firms with significant locations in the city include multinationals Airbus, Blohm + Voss, Aurubis, Beiersdorf, and Unilever. The city hosts specialists in world economics and international law, including consular and diplomatic missions as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the EU-LAC Foundation, and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, multipartite international political conferences and summits such as Europe and China and the G20. Both former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Angela Merkel, German chancellor since 2005, were born in Hamburg. The city is a major international and domestic tourist destination. It ranked 18th in the world for livability in 2016. The Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 2015.Hamburg is a major European science, research, and education hub, with several universities and institutions. Among its most notable cultural venues are the Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle concert halls. It gave birth to movements like Hamburger Schule and paved the way for bands including The Beatles. Hamburg is also known for several theatres and a variety of musical shows. St. Pauli's Reeperbahn is among the best-known European entertainment districts.