PRACTICALITIES
Travel
By rail
Utrecht has excellent rail connections to major European cities: https://www.nsinternational.com/en. For participants travelling through Germany: all DB ICE, DB IC, and ÖBB NightJet trains passing through Düsseldorf to Amsterdam stop in Utrecht. Participants travelling from e.g., Berlin via Enschede or Hengelo should change in Amersfoort to a local intercity train to Utrecht. Participants travelling from the UK or France can take the Eurostar to Rotterdam, where you can change to a local intercity train to Utrecht. See https://www.ns.nl/en for local intercity connections from Amersfoort or Rotterdam to Utrecht.
By air
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, one of the main European hubs, is the closest and most convenient airport to Utrecht. It has almost 300 destinations to many parts of the world and is quite efficient. Schiphol has its own railway station; there are up to six direct trains to Utrecht per hour during the day, that take approximately 30 minutes to get to Utrecht Central station (see https://www.ns.nl/en). The much smaller airports in Eindhoven and Rotterdam/The Hague might offer low-budget options for European destinations, but travel from these airports to Utrecht is much less convenient and more time consuming.
Public transport in The Netherlands
All public transport in the Netherlands requires checking in and checking out using a contactless card. You can check in and out with:
- contactless credit cards from Mastercard and Visa (issued by ICS)
- smartphones that are set up with contactless payment with a card from above-mentioned debit and credit cards. Apple Pay and Google Wallet also work.
- a foreign contactless debit or credit cards from Maestro, V pay, Mastercard, or Visa
More information can be found on https://ovpay.nl/en/how-it-works
Accommodation
Housing is centrally arranged for the duration of the conference in shared or private rooms in Hotel Mitland (https://www.mitland.nl/) from Sunday June 30th to Saturday July 6th. These hotel rooms are booked while registering for the conference. Hotel Mitland is located just outside the city and close to the conference venue. All rooms are double rooms with their own facilities; breakfast is included. Participants can choose between a private or shared room. In case of a shared room, the name of the preferred roommate can be indicated on the registration form (not yet on the preregistration), and this must be mutually agreed, i.e. both persons must indicate the name of the other before we can accommodate such a request.
For participants of the workshop on Micromagnetic Tomography that precedes the conference, the rooms are available from Friday June 28th.
Getting around
Utrecht is a city with excellent public transport connections and excellent walking and cycling infrastructure. Utrecht has an extensive network of cycling lanes and paths, many of them are completely separate from other traffic, making cycling a very safe, quick and healthy mode of travel. Rental bikes (and helmets) are therefore included in the conference registration and are available at the hotel, from check-in to check-out. If you have a basic proficiency in biking, you will quickly get familiar with –and enjoy!– getting around this way. Travelling between hotel, campus, and city center will take less than 20 minutes by bicycle.
For participants who do not feel safe on a bike we offer a public transport ticket (for the city of Utrecht) that is valid for the entire week. The public transport network in Utrecht is dense and efficient, traveling between the hotel, campus, and city-center with public transport will take approximately 30 minutes. More information on public transport connections can be found using Google Maps, or through: https://9292.nl/en.
If traveling by either a bicycle or public transport is too challenging, we will arrange a solution on a case-by-case basis. Please indicate this on the (pre-)registration form and we will contact you to find a proper solution in due time.
Accompanying persons
Utrecht is centrally located in The Netherlands and cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague are all 30-60 minutes away by train. Therefore, we understand that this conference might be of interest to accompanying persons. The easiest way to facilitate an accompanying persons program is to book a private room – the costs for the additional breakfast € and bike is € 25.- per day. If there is sufficient demand, we could also organize a more formal accompanying persons program including attendance of (parts of) the social program of the conference. Please indicate potential interest in an extended accompanying persons program during preregistration.
The Dom tower is the highest church tower in the Netherlands at 112 m and can be climbed for a magnificent view over Utrecht. It survived the only known tornado in the Netherlands that destroyed part of the Dom church in 1674 AD.