Document: N1413
Date: 2009/10/08
Author: Enrico Vicario
Dept.Sistemi e Informatica, Università di Firenze
3, via santa Marta, 50139, Firenze, Italy
++39 055 4796526

VENUE

The meeting will take place in the didactic center of the University of Florence at Viale Morgagni, which is the site that hosts teachnig activities for the first three years of the engineering school as well as a number of other courses in the medicine school, in computer science and biology. The site is in the town of Florence, at a distance of 30 minutes by bus from the historical downtown. The meeting will be organized in a room equipped with projector (if you need I can also provie a laptop from my lab). The site provides wireless internet access to every attendant (under compilation of a personal identification form, as required by the Italian law). The site includes a bar service that also provides meals. If you want, a catering service can be organized in the room, or perhaps more conveniently, we can organize a quick lunch in a restaurant which is just in front of the site.

ACCOMMODATION

For accommodation, I suggest Hotel Raffaello which is a very comfortable 4-star hotel at 10 minutes walk from the site and applies a special rate of 100 euro per night in a double room used by a single person including breakfast for University guests (I understand that this is not cheap, but consider that Hotels in Florence are really very expensive. Maybe that if we book in a single group for at least ten people we can have a further reduction). Alternatively, we also have a special arrangement with Hotel Guelfo Bianco, which is much closer to the historical downtown, but requires a 30 minutes bus to reach viale Morgagni.

CONNECTION

Florence can be reached through train (is a node of the high speed network connecting Torino, Milano, Venezia, Bologna, Firenze, Roma, Napoli). The central station is 30 minutes by bus from viale Morgagni. Florence has a city airport connected to the major european hubs served by major european carriers (including airfrance, lufthansa, Swiss, Airfrance, Merdiana). Florence can also be efficiently reached from the airporto f Pisa, which also hosts various low-costo companies and is connected to Florence thorugh a 1 hour train from the airport. By the way, the line from Pisa also stops at the station of Rifredi, which is 10 minutes walk from the site of Viale Morgani and form Hotel Raffaello. Finally, Florence can also be reached from Bologna, which has an efficient airport and is connected to Florence through high speed trains. I do not recommend to use Fiumicino in Roma or Malpensa in Milano, both of which for various bad reasons are not able to provide a reasonable connection to Firenze. In case you should choose one of the two, Malpensa is certainly the worst.