Location

Venue: Hotel Caribia

(a.k.a. Holiday Club Turku, Caribia)

The map of Turku with all the conference sites

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Local information

Turku (Åbo in Swedish) is located in the South-west corner of Finland, at the entrance of one of the world's largest and most beautiful archipelagos, with more than 40 000 islands.

Though Finland is far north and cold in the winter, the weather from June to August is usually warm. Days are still long in August (there is no midnight sun, though). Turku is the oldest city in Finland, with a Cathedral dating back to the 13th century, an old castle and other sites of historical interest; it was the Capital of Finland until the beginning of the 19th century. Tourist information about Turku is available online. For more extensive local and historical information, you may like to visit Virtual Finland.

Further information on getting to Turku (by plane, train, bus or ferry) is here.

Most of the Finnish population (almost all young people) speak English well. The main native language in Finland is of course Finnish, but about 6% (mainly on the West coast) speak Swedish as a first language; the country is officially bilingual. Some basic Finnish for travellers and Swedish for travellers is available electronically, as well as a full Swedish-English dictionary.