ICALP, LICS, LC, PPDP 2007

Travel information

Flying

You need to land in Wrocław. There is a small international airport here. There are about six daily flights to Warsaw, they take one hour. There are daily international flights to/from Copenhagen, Dublin, Frankfurt, London Stansted, Munich and some other, less frequent flights.

Book early. There are many tourists in the summer and not so many flights.

The easiest way to get from the airport to the city center is to call a taxi, however there is a city bus line no. 406 from the airport to the railway station. It takes about half an hour to get to the railway station by bus. Buses depart twice an hour during the day, there is no bus at night. Please consult the timetable. The first coulmn is for weekdays, the second for weekends.

Driving

If you live in central Europe you may consider driving to Wrocław. It is 3 hours drive from Dresden (260 km) and a bit more from Berlin (310 km), 80% of which is a motorway. Our experience is that leaving Dagstuhl after lunch we can be in Wrocław for late dinner. It is not always easy to park a car in Wrocław city center, but we can host a couple of cars in the underground parking of our Institute (locked, CCTV) — please contact us earlier to book a place.

Consider this map.

Trains

Wrocław's main railway station is located near the city center, about 20 minutes walk from the city center and thirty minutes from the Institute of Computer Science. A taxi to your destination (hotel or Institute of Computer Science) should be at available price. You can also use public transport (due to numerous road works in the city center we are not able to give in advance any suggestion about public transport, but this information will appear before the conferences). Or just take a walk.

If you want to travel by train you should use the timetable of Polish railways. The usual name for the main railway station in the city is usually “Główny” (for example “Wrocław Główny”) or “Centralny” (in case of “Warszawa Centralna”) or some variation of the above names.

Trains in Poland are cheap but rather slow. You should probably stick to the IC/EC trains or EX trains (a bit slower, also the standard is a bit lower). Using other trains on domestic routes is very inexpensive, time consuming and the standard can be very low.

Taxi

Most of the cabs in Wrocław belong to corporations. Each corporation is characterized by its 4-digit phone number, for example 9191 (aka MPT) is a huge and trustworthy company. We recommend them. Also 9455 (aka Domino) and 9663 (aka Super Radio Taxi) are recommendable.

Legally, the maximal price for a cab is 6 zł plus 3 zł/km. On Sundays and after 11 pm prices are 50% higher. Some corporations charge less if you call a cab by phone. For example 9191 offers a rebate of 25% in such case (yes, this is a strange policy and we also fail to understand it).

The distance from the airport to the downtown is about 12 km. This means that a cab ride from the airport, should cost around 42 zł, which is around 11 euro (again, 50% more on Sunday or in the night).

Be careful. If you just hail any cab form the street, you risk being ripped off, especially if you depart from the airport or from the railway station.

Taxi drivers usually accept EUR or USD, but their exchange rates are low.

From the hotel to the Institute of Computer Science

If you stay in a hotel somewhere in the city center, you should find the river (Odra, most probably to the north) and head east. The walk should take about twenty minutes. You can take a taxi or use public transport, but the latter probably will not make a difference from the walk. Some images of the Institute of Computer Science should help you in localizing it.

City map

Wrocław's web page offers an interactive map of the city. Unfortunately, after the conservation its functionality rapidly decreased. In particular there is only Polish menu. Nevertheless the only thing you need to know in Polish is that “wyszukiwanie” is “search” and you can look up for a street (“ulica”) of a given name (or part of its name). If the name (or its part, you can type nothing) is not enough to identify a street uniquely, you will be asked to choose form a list. After choosing street you can also look for an address (“adres”) on the street or simply zoom to see the numbers. For example typing “Joliot-Curie” and ”14” gives a location of the institute of Chemistry, next to the Institute of Computer Science — it is too new for its address to be listed.

Google offers another map as well.

Exchange rates

Polish currency is officially called PLN, although usually you will find name zł. 1 € is a bit less than 4 PLN. 1 USD is a bit less than 3 PLN.

More information

• Jungle Book: Wrocław
• Wrocław-life.com
• Wrocław on-line
• Wrocław in your pocket
• Wrocław@WikiTravel
• Yahoo! travel guide to Wrocław
• Convention Bureau-Wrocław
• StayPoland: Wrocław
• Wrocław Weekly
• Weather and forecast: ICM, Thunderstorms in Poland, Time and date, Wunderground, WeatherCity, WorldWeather, Answers.com, Yahoo! Weather
• Internet cameras: Kogeneracja, Axis
• Official site of the city