Transient Transcendence in Transylvania

Brașov, Romania, May 13–17, 2019

Practical information [pdf]

Conference location

The conference will take place in Romania, more precisely in Braşov, more precisely at the Belvedere Events Center.
The address is Str. Stejerișului, Nr. 11, Braşov, +40 268 415 575, see the map.
The participants (listed here) will be accommodated at Belvedere Hotel and at Belvedere Grand Hotel.
The talks (listed here, see the program here) will be given in the conference room Belvedere Ballroom of the Belvedere Events Center.
Lunches will be served at the Belvedere Restaurant.
For more (visual) information, see the photo gallery, and the video gallery.

Time zone

Romania is in the time zone "UTC (GMT) +02:00", also called "Eastern European Time (EET)".

Local currency

Although Romania is part of the European Union since 2007, and currently the chair of the European Council, it is still not a member of the Schengen Area nor of the Eurozone. There are two direct consequences of this. One is that special regulations of external borders may apply. The other is that payments in euros are not accepted. The local currency is the Romanian leu ("lion"), currently valued at 0.21 euros. For precise rates and conversions, see here.

How to reach Brașov

• by plane

The nearest airports to Brașov are the Henri Coandă (Otopeni) International Airport in Bucharest and the Sibiu International Airport.
• From Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport, there are several options to get to Belvedere Hotel:
• The canonical and easiest way: on Sunday (May 12) there will be three transfer buses arranged by the organizers, leaving the airport at 2:30pm, 4:30pm and 6pm, and going directly to Belvedere Hotel. The trip takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes. On Friday (May 17), there will be similar shuttle buses leaving Belvedere Hotel at 2pm.
• Transfers from the airport to the hotel, and back, are provided hourly by the company M & M. The trip takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes, see here for schedules. The price of such a trip is 80 lei (approx. 18 euros). A booking must be made in advance at the phone number +40 744 987 987 or online.
• There are trains from the Bucharest railway station ("Gara de Nord") to Brașov. The trip takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Train timetables and online tickets can be found here. For the access from the Otopeni airport to the train station we recommend to take a taxi. Details are given here.
• From Sibiu International Airport (especially for those coming from Germany or Austria) you can choose one of the following options to get to Belvedere Hotel:
• take a minivan of the company RomaniaIn. For groups of 7 persons, the price of the transfer to any address in Brașov is 100 euros. The trip takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes.
• take a taxi to Sibiu, then a bus to Brașov. The bus trip takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes, and costs about 30 lei (approx. 7 euros).
• take one of the buses no. 11, 2, 5, 15, 17 to the main railway station in Sibiu. From there, take a train to Brașov, see here, Alternatively, take a bus to Brașov from the bus station Transmixt (located near the Sibiu railway station). The price of a train/bus ticket (Sibiu to Brașov) is between 6 and 10 euros.

• by train (especially for those enjoying long and/or exotic trips):

There is a direct train Vienna-Brașov. The name of this train is Dacia. Details are available here.

How to reach Belvedere Hotel

The simplest way is to order a taxi. There are plenty of companies, e.g., Tod, Cristax, Martax, Bratax.
They are cheap and reliable: the typical cost varies between 1.3 lei and 2 lei per km.
If you really insist on testing public transportation, you can take the bus no. 4 to the station Livada Postei; from there, the bus no. 20 will take you to the station Belvedere, located near hotel Belvedere.

Excursion and concert

On Wednesday (May 15), there will be an excursion to the Bran Castle, commonly known as "Dracula's Castle". The bus will leave the hotel around 2pm.
The excursion will be followed by a concert (piano and violin) held at the Aula Magna of the Transylvania University in Brașov. The concert will start at 6:00 pm and will end at 7:30pm.

Banquets

There will be two special dinners: a welcome dinner on Sunday (May 12) starting at 8pm, and the banquet of the conference on Thursday (May 16) at 7:30 pm.
In case of dietary restrictions, please inform the organizers.