Venue

IWCE 2010 will be held in Pisa, Italy,a city with origins during or before Etruscan and Roman times, which has played an important role in Tuscan history, particularly during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.


Its most famous monument is the recently restored leaning tower, but there are many more places of interest, such as the well preserved promenade along the Arno river, the architectural complex around Piazza dei Cavalieri, the medieval fortresses.


Pisa is a relatively small town (about 100,000 inhabitants), located near the Tyrrenian Sea (11 km) in north-western Tuscany, along the banks of the Arno river, and approximately 80 km West of Firenze (Florence).



The University of Pisa was founded in 1343 and now enrolls about 40,000 students. There are also two other universities in Pisa: the Scuola Normale Superiore and the SSSUP S.Anna, which play the role of honors colleges and provide master and doctoral programs.


Pisa is also home to a very large and recently built facility of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), which covers a broad spectrum of research activities, from physiology to quantum chemistry, from computer science to language analysis.


IWCE 2010 will take place in the conference center of the CNR facility, which has a main auditorium with 338 seats The conference center is located on the North-East side of Pisa (see map ) and is well-connected to the city center by two bus lines, the Green LAM (LAM verde L/V) operating every 12 minutes during the day, and line "E", which runs approximately every 15 minutes. Bus tickets will be provided, included in the conference fee. Both of these bus services operate until about 9:00 PM. After 9:00 PM and until about midnight it is possible to use line 22. For the Green LAM (LAM Verde L/V) bus, the stop which is closest to the conference venue is "Via Volpi-CNR". It is a new stop, along the perimeter of the CNR complex; the bus gets there just after exiting a large roundabout. For the other buses the "Pratale" stop should be used, both to get to the conference site from downtown and to get back to the downtown area. The stop "Pratale" is easily recognizable, because just before stopping there the bus goes through an arch in a Renaissance acqueduct (only for line "E" the acqueduct is crossed twice, and "Pratale" is after the second crossing).



The geographic coordinates of the bus stop "Via Volpi-CNR" are 43 degrees 43.201' N (43 degrees 43' 12'' N) and 10 degrees 25.262' E (10 degrees 25' 16'' E); those for the bus stop "Pratale" are 43 degrees 43.263' N (43 degrees 43' 16'') and 10 degrees 25.237' E (10 degrees 25' 14''); those of the entrance to the CNR complex are 43 degrees 43.165' N (43 degrees 43' 10'') and 10 degrees 25.428' E (10 degrees 25' 26''); and those for the Auditorium entrance are 43 degrees 43.140' N (43 degrees 43' 08'') and 10 degrees 25.336' N (10 degrees 25' 20'').