Conference Venue

• Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI)
• Address: Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam
• Maps
  • CWI Maps
  • All important sites of ESUG 2008 Amsterdam in one view at Google Maps.
• Directions to CWI.

Traveling to Amsterdam

By plane

By far the best airport to fly to is Amsterdam's intercontinental airport at Schipol, which is used by main carriers and by several cheap airlines (e.g. easyjet). Schiphol Airport has a rail station immediately beneath the terminal level. From schipol train station, travel to Amsterdam Centraal and change for Amsterdam Amstel. Use the section on trains below for buying tickets, checking times and locating platforms. Use the Google Maps to find your way from Amstel station (first entry in the left pane list) to the conference venue at CWI.

(Other airports used by cheap carriers that are in Holland, or close to its borders, include Eindhoven and Weeze, used by Ryanair, and Rotterdam. All these, and the major Brussels airports, are within reach of Amsterdam by train, but Schiphol is by far the most convenient. Use the excellent site To and From the Airport if you travel to any of these others.)

By train

Use this site to plan your train travel in Holland. The station nearest the conference venue is Amsterdam Amstel, which you will probably reach from any distance by travelling to Amsterdam Centraal and changing; see directions in plane section above.

Some points about buying train tickets in Holland:

• You buy same-day tickets or open tickets. Be sure to timestamp the latter - by inserting them in the slots of the yellow pillars at the stairs/escalators down to platforms - before travelling on them.

• Only at Schiphol Airport does the Dutch train service accept credit cards and most foreign debit cards. Elsewhere they accept Maestro with chip and not much else. This can be important because of my next point.

• Only a minority of ticket machines accept euro coins. None accept euro notes. The ticket offices will accept notes (and may have queues) but, except at Schipol, they will not accept credit cards nor most debit cards.

• You can buy tickets from anywhere to anywhere on a Dutch ticket machine though the UI implies you can only buy a day return or a single from your current location. Use the touch screen to set up a ticket from your current location to somewhere then touch the white 'from location' box to be prompted to change the start point to anywhere. Thus you can buy your return ticket on credit card at Schipol when you arrive. Buy your outward ticket, then ask the machine for a ticket from Schipol to Schipol, change the 'from' location and select 'open-date' and 'single' (yes, it sounds silly but it works :-).

By bus

This site is only available in Dutch. Select one of the two radio buttons for each of your from and to locations, or select from the 'zoek anders' drop-down list if you want to specific the address otherwise than as an address or train station.

See the Directions to CWI for information on routes that serve the conference venue.