I will have a 5 hr. layover in Dusseldorf (LH/LH connection).
Is it worth to travel by train to Cologne or Duisburg (?)walk around the town and have a dinner there or there are some attractions around the airport You can recommend (seating in LH Business lounge doesn't count as local attraction).

Many thanks,

Raf

LH Business Lounge in DUS is nothing to write home about.
Why travel to Cologne by train and even to Duisburg(? sorry for the Duisburger! but a ghost town to me) when you can enjoy 5 hours in DUS with no sweat?
I would recommend that you go to the Altstadt(old town) with an S-bahn and a tram via HBF(Central Station), where you can enjoy local Altbier and stroll around near-by Koenigsallee where fancy shops are located.
In Altstadt, Brauerei Im F�chschen Peter K�nig‎ in Ratinger Stra�e 28 is a must for good beers and food.
Counting journey time with an S-Bahn from the DUS airport to the city and back, you can kill 5 hours quickly this way.
So, don't go to K�ln, visit D�sseldorf.

Well, I wouldn't want to spend 5 hrs in a DUS business lounge, and spending 5 hrs at DUS isn't much of a delight either (especially when you're travelling in the evening, the terminals will be quite empty). There's no reasonable restaurant at the airport (and I don't call the "Leonardo's" self-service, the Nordsee self-service and the McDonalds (guess what, self-service) eateries a proper restaurant), so I'd suggest you visit the city of D�sseldorf (a trip to cologne in 5 hours may be a bit too much, even if the ICE takes only about half an hour to get there from the airport, the trains don't run very regularly).

After you have picked up your luggage, proceed to the SkyTrain station above the departure floor (don't take the S-Bahn train leaving below concourse C as those local trains only depart twice an hour and take much longer to the central station) and buy a ticket for "A" fare (costs about 2 EUR, if you're accompanied by someone else, you should buy a 4-trip-ticket). When you arrive at the airport station, take any local train (red two-deck trains) leaving from platform 5 towards D�sseldorf, Koblenz or Aachen and get off about 5 minutes later at D�sseldorf Central Station. From there, proceed to the underground station and take any of the trams towards "Duisburg Meiderich" (U79), "Messe Nord" (U78), "D�sseldorf-L�rick" (U74) or "Am Seestern" (U77). Get off at "Heinrich-Heine-Allee" (I think it's the 4th station after Central) and you'll be right in the city center of D�sseldorf.

There, you'll find an aggregations of restaurants and bars that is considered to be the densest in the world, so you should not have any problems to spend quite some time (unless you are easily bothered by bachelor parties and huge crowds of people, especially on weekends). To get back to the airport, just take the trains the other way round. You should plan about 30 to 40 minutes to get back to the airport.

Absolutely. D�sseldorf is so much closer and absolutely worth going to for 5 hours.

It's easy. The terminal train station is close to Terminal 1C in DUS, somewhere downstairs and well signed.

Hmmm, guys. Thanks. You almost convinced me to go to Dusseldorf on Monday aftrnoon, but it will be really hard to have some fun in german industrial town, if I come back from lively Madrid . Well, I will try anyway...

Duesseldorf an industrial town??? Duisburg is for sure and perhaps even Cologne but in Duesseldorf you would have to go far into the suburbs (e.g. Holthausen for Henkel) to meet any substantial industry activity - agree with previous posters - Duesseldorf is just fine, don't bother with Cologne for 5h layover

after going landside, go to the little LA DELIZIE italian place in the aipirt and ask for their best brunello. they will keep you entertained for five hours with wine, italian sweets, ham ans cheese, no worries

If You want to see some industrial parts, the "Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord" is very nice. Go by train (not S-Bahn) to Duisburg Central Station , it's a 10 minutes ride and then take the supway (tram) to Dinslaken and leave the tram at Landschaftspark it will be a 15 minute ride.

So while Dusseldorf is no Madrid -- its definitely not a boring/awful place.

There's lots of good stuff in the Altstadt -- and Ko Allee has some great shopping. Also some really good food! (Surprisingly some of the best Thai food I've had in Europe was here).

I'd head to Schumacher -- enjoy some Altbier and some great German food. (Their mustard blows my mind).

Cheers,

-W

Dusseldorf is actually a great town- and also very lively- granted it is not Berlin or Hamburg, however it is very nice- also check out the Japanese areas of the city if you have time- extremely interesting and some of the best sushi outside of Tokyo.

Moving this post to Travel & Dining Destination Germany, like all threads that deal with 'what to do in XXX for Y hours'
Regards Oliver2002
Mod M&M forum

Hi OP, what'd you end up doing? I have a layover (11am arrival to 5pm departure) on a Thursday that I'm trying to figure out what to do.

Due to a schedule change, my family (including 2 kids 11 & 13) will have a long layover in DUS. We land at 7:00 am and leave at 5:00 pm. Both flights are on Air Berlin. We will have carryon luggage and electronics. I am thinking it might be best to get a hotel near or at the airport to leave the bags in and then venture out in to town. Any advice on hotel or what to do would be appreciated. This will be a Saturday in March.

Why get a hotel when you only intend to use it as a means to store your baggage? There's a left baggage service somewhere in the car park directly opposite the main terminal, and if you intend to go downtown, you might even consider using the luggage lockers at D�sseldorf Central Station (which would obviously require to carry your belongings to the trains which is not as convenient but may be cheaper than using the airport's baggage service).

I have found the Sheraton at DUS very convenient as it is located directly at the terminal.