Darmstadt

Introduction

Darmstadt is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, set in the southern part of the Rhine-Main area. It ranks among the larger cities of Hesse, behind Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, and Kassel.

Before you go

Darmstadt was once the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, and the Grand Dukes lived in what is now the Schloss Marktplatz. It is also the birthplace of the last Empress of Russia, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova. Much of the old town was destroyed in Allied carpet bombing during World War II, and most of what still stands was reconstructed afterwards. The city also lost its status as the capital of Hesse after the war, that honour now lying with nearby Wiesbaden.

If you speak German, the name may sound peculiar, since "Darm" means "intestine" - though locals are quick to point out that the etymology of the name has nothing to do with intestines, large or small. Darmstadt is also an important site for the European Space Agency (ESA), serving as mission control for several important space missions in a similar way Houston fulfills that role for NASA. For local information, the Darmstadt Marketing tourist office is located on the corner of the Luisenplatz.

Getting there

Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof is the main rail gateway, with trains including ICEs linking the city to Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Mainz, and Aschaffenburg. The S3 S-Bahn line also connects Darmstadt and Frankfurt, and Flixtrain serves the city — note that DB tickets are not valid on Flixtrain and vice versa. For trips to or from the northwest, such as Köln, Düsseldorf, or Amsterdam, the quickest route is sometimes via Frankfurt Airport, where you can change between ICE trains on the Frankfurt–Köln line and the Airliner bus to or from Darmstadt.

By plane, Darmstadt is about 20 minutes by road from Frankfurt Airport. If you continue by public transport, the AirLiner shuttle bus is far more convenient than the train: it runs every 30 to 60 minutes, stops at both airport terminals (bay 14 across the street from terminal 1, and directly in front of terminal 2), and its ticket is also valid for connecting transport around Darmstadt in the RMV zones. Buy your ticket from the bus driver. On its way to Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof the bus stops at Mina-Rees-Straße and Heinrich-Hertz-Straße; in the opposite direction it goes directly from the station to the airport. By car, the A5 and A67 freeways pass the eastern end of Darmstadt; follow the signs to Darmstadt/Griesheim onto the short A672, which merges into the B26 towards the city, though expect a traffic jam here in the morning. You can also arrive via the B3, running north–south between Frankfurt and Heidelberg, or the B26, running east–west towards Aschaffenburg. The inner city is a system of tunnels and one-way roads for passing traffic, which can be a bit confusing.

Getting around

Darmstadt's public transport is part of the wider Rhine-Main network, the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV), so a single ticketing system covers trams, buses and trains across the city and its surroundings. Darmstadt and its surroundings form tariff area 40, subdivided into zones numbered 40xx, with the city itself as zone 4001; fares depend on how many zones you touch. Trams are the backbone of the network and are marked with single-digit numbers, reaching from Arheilgen in the north to Eberstadt in the south and beyond to Seeheim-Jugenheim and Alsbach, and from Griesheim in the west to Kranichstein in the northeast. Lines 3, 5, 7/8 and 9 form the core network, while lines 1, 2, 4 and 6 reinforce it at rush hour; line 6 is an express service that skips some intermediate stops. Local bus lines are marked with single or double letters, and main bus lines often share routes and stops with trams in the inner city. Overland lines to surrounding towns and villages have three- or four-digit numbers, or two-digit numbers preceded by the letter K, and most stop at Hauptbahnhof and at other stops they pass on their way through the city.

In the evening, most tram and bus lines run at a 30-minute frequency, with connections timed to meet at Luisenplatz at :15 and :45 past the hour. When buying a ticket from a vending machine at a tram or bus stop, you need to specify a destination; the machine has a chart giving numeric codes, and if you are travelling only in the central part of Darmstadt you enter the code for Stadtmitte (city centre). For two to five people travelling together on multiple trips within a day, a group day ticket (Gruppentageskarte) is probably the most economical choice, and schedules and fares are available from RMV. Beyond Hauptbahnhof, which sits in the western part of the city centre, several train stops are scattered across the city:

• Arheilgen and Wixhausen in the north, served by the S3 S-Bahn line
• Darmstadt-Süd and Darmstadt-Eberstadt in the south, where Regionalbahn trains to and from Heidelberg stop
• Darmstadt Nordbahnhof and Darmstadt-Kranichstein on the line to Aschaffenburg
• Darmstadt Ostbahnhof and Darmstadt TU-Lichtwiese on the line to Erbach in the Odenwald

The inner city is dense with tram and bus routes, which makes the centre convenient to explore on foot, though it is laid out as a system of tunnels and one-way roads for passing traffic that can be confusing to navigate on foot or by car. If you are arriving from Frankfurt Airport, the AirLiner shuttle bus runs every 30 to 60 minutes, stops at both airport terminals, and on its way to Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof calls at Mina-Rees-Straße and Heinrich-Hertz-Straße; buy your ticket from the driver, and note that it is also valid for connecting transport around Darmstadt within the relevant RMV zones. By car, the freeways A5 and A67 pass by the eastern end of the city, and you can also reach it via the B3 north–south and the B26 east–west main roads.

Where to stay

Darmstadt often serves as an alternative base for business travellers when trade fairs in Frankfurt leave hotels there overbooked, so price levels in the city fluctuate sharply around those events. If Darmstadt itself is full, look to Neu-Isenburg or Dreieich instead.

Accommodation is spread across the city rather than concentrated in a single district. Options include the Maritim Konferenzhotel Darmstadt/Frankfurt on Rheinstraße, the Rhein-Main Hotel Darmstadt on Am Kavalleriesand, the Welcome Hotel Darmstadt at Karolinenplatz, the IBIS and ETAP hotels on Kasinostraße, the Hotel Contel on Otto-Röhm-Straße, the Bestwestern Darmstadt on Grafenstraße, the Hotel Jagdschloß Kranichstein on Kranichsteiner Straße, the Hotel Bockshaut on Kirchstraße, the Prinz Heinrich on Bleichstraße, and the Moxy Hotel Darmstadt on Georg-Ohm-Straße. For budget travellers there is also a youth hostel, the Deutsche Jugendherberge, on Landgraf-Georg-Straße.

Food & drink

For hearty local cooking, Darmstadt's traditional taverns and breweries are the place to start. At City Braustüb'l you'll find country-style interiors, a small beer garden in summer, and what may be the best Schweinshaxe in Hessen, served with beer sauce, two dumplings and raw sauerkraut. Grohe Brauerei is a smaller traditional brewery with its own tavern, where you can drink freshly brewed beer alongside typical local food; many locals consider it the best beer in town. Ratskeller, in the cellar vault of an older building at the market place, brews its own beer and has a traditional atmosphere, while Rummel Brauerei's "Darmstädter" Bier turns up in restaurants and taverns across the city.

Hesse's national drink, apple cider — "Äbbelwoi" in the local dialect — is popular here too, served pure or blended with sparkling water ("sauer gespritzt") or lemonade ("süß gespritzt"); if you're not used to its sourness, try the lemonade version first. For something meat-free, Mondo Deli in the city centre does Indian curries, pasta, soups and salads in a self-service style with a daily-changing menu, while Habibi near the Schloss serves mostly organic and fair-trade vegetarian and vegan dishes and sometimes hosts political-cultural events and board games. Asia on Kasinostraße is an old Chinese restaurant with running sushi, HotPot and steamboat, and Snack Point near Friedensplatz lets you specify your currywurst's flavour and heat — request levels C and above at your own risk. Mezzo offers fresh German cuisine with Mediterranean flair, Shiraz serves Persian-oriental food, and Food Garden Restaurant, set in the middle of a garden with a covered terrace, cooks Indian, German and Italian. Among the cafés, Café Bellevue is popular with locals for breakfast, Café Woog sits by a small artificial lake, and Timm's Café serves some of the best coffee in town with vegan cakes.

What to see and do

Start at Künstlerkolonie Mathildenhöhe, the most beautiful part of Darmstadt, where Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig invited seven artists in 1899 to found the Artists' Colony. The focal point is the Ernst Ludwig House, the Studio House, which has housed the Artists' Colony Museum since 1990; there is also a small park and a Russian-style chapel. The site became a world heritage site in 2021. In the city centre you cannot miss the Langer Ludwig, Darmstadt's landmark statue on a huge sandstone column at Luisenplatz, which you can climb on the first Saturday of every month and during special events for a view over the city. Nearby at Marktplatz stands the Schloss, and south of the centre in Bessungen you'll find the Orangerie, a baroque garden with fountains where people play boule or relax on the grass in summer. East of town, around the corner from the Ostbahnhof, is Park Rosenhöhe, with a rose garden not to be missed. Also worth seeking out are the Waldspirale, the huge Hundertwasser residential building finished in 2000 with its spiral shape, green roof and no two of its many windows alike, and the Porzellansammlung Erlangen in the Prinz-Georg-Palais, an exhibit of the Grand Ducal Hessian Porcelain Collection. For a walk with one of the best views over the city, head up the Ludwigshöhe and Ludwigsturm south of Bessungen, where there is also a small place for food and drinks. Further afield, Castle Frankenstein is a hilltop castle near Darmstadt in Mühltal, first mentioned in records in the year 948, with ruins you can hike up to and special dinners on Halloween and other occasions.

To relax, the Jugendstil Bad offers a pool, sauna and spa in an art nouveau atmosphere, in a former "Central Bath" built in 1909 and renovated as a wellness centre in 2007. The Vivarium is a small zoo, and the Eisenbahnmuseum Darmstadt-Kranichstein is a volunteer-run railway museum with special events through the year, where you might get a chance to ride a historic train to and from central station. You can also tour the European Space Operations Center by pre-registration, and the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt organises concerts alongside its jazz collection. Football fans can watch SV Darmstadt at their home ground southeast of the town centre. If you're lucky, Der Feurige Elias, a steam-powered train, runs through the streets on the tram tracks, mostly on Sundays in June and September. The city's calendar is busy: the Heinerfest takes over the whole inner city for several days at the end of June or beginning of July, the Schloßgrabenfest is an annual music festival in the city centre, the Darmstädter Dichterschlacht is a poetry slam series at the Centralstation, the Filmfest Weiterstadt is an open-air short film festival in mid-August (bring warm clothes, as August nights can be cold), and the Just for Fun street theatre festival takes place at several locations in August.

When to go

Darmstadt has a mild climate, so you can visit at most times of year, but the seasons feel quite different. Summers are warm and humid, and thunderstorms are frequent, sometimes dropping heavy rain. Expect sticky, unsettled weather rather than long stretches of steady sunshine, and plan indoor stops as backup.

Winters are mostly relatively mild, often with prolonged periods of high fog. Snow is most likely in January and February, though a mild winter with little or no snow is also possible, so don't count on a snowy visit.

Three days in Darmstadt

Day one: Start in Darmstadt itself, in Hesse, Germany, and get your bearings around Luisenplatz before wandering to the Schloss and Marktplatz, the historic core associated with the Grand Duchy and the Grand Dukes. Note the city's links to Empress Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova of Russia, and how much of the centre was lost to Allied bombing in World War II. If you arrive by train, Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof is served by ICEs and by Bahn and Flixtrain services, with easy connections to Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Mainz, Aschaffenburg, Köln and Düsseldorf.

Day two: Give a full day to the city's scientific and space side. Darmstadt is home to the European Space Agency, ESA, which operates here alongside its counterparts such as NASA in Houston. For orientation and local information, Darmstadt Marketing is the place to check. The name Darmstadt itself comes from the Darm, and the city sits within reach of the Rhine and Main rivers, so the surrounding region is easy to explore if you want to add a river town to your day.

Day three: Use the day for the wider region. It is straightforward to reach Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Mainz, Aschaffenburg, Köln, Düsseldorf or Kassel by train, whether on ICEs, Bahn or Flixtrain. If you prefer to stay closer, spend the time revisiting the Schloss and Marktplatz area and the Luisenplatz, filling in the Grand Duchy and Grand Dukes history you skipped on day one.