DebConf15/Bids/Karlskrona
Our proposed location to host DebConf15 is Karlskrona, a naval town in the Blekinge county located in the south-eastern corner of Sweden, with about 35,000 inhabitants.
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[edit] Getting there
Traveling to Karlskrona is rather easy, the closest airport is Ronneby (RNB) with daily flights to and from the Stockholm airports, from RNB you can catch the airport bus that takes you to Karlskrona. The encouraged route would however be to go to the airport in Copenhagen, Denmark (CPH), and then at the airport station switch to a direct Øresundtåg train to Karlskrona, a three hours ride.
Some Irish low cost airline is using Småland Airport in Växjö as their home airport in the region, going from that airport to Karlskrona, one first need a ride to Växjö central station and then you can either go by bus or by train. The bus will take about two hours to Ronneby and then a 15 minutes Øresundtåg train ride to Karlskrona. Going by train from Växjö central station to Karlskrona is expected to become a nonstop ride (the line is closed for renovation until mid-December 2013, with service upgrades following in 2014 and 2015).
For the ferry preferring people there are at least two good options: Gdynia (Poland) to Karlskrona with Stena Line, and Świnoujście (Poland) to Ystad. When arriving from Gdynia (without a car) you have to either catch a taxi or take a local bus from the ferry stop. When arriving in Ystad you still have some ground to cover - if you have a car, you will drive north and connect to E22 near Kristianstad and from there you follow the road signs. In other cases you can travel with the local trains and buses to get to either Lund or Kristanstad and then switch to the direct Øresundståg from Copenhagen/Malmö to Karlskrona.
[edit] Visas
For visa questions the main thing to know is that Sweden is part of the EU and Schengen, the Swedish wikipedia page has a nice list about visas for Sweden (translation: "Krav på visum" => "Visa required", "Inga krav på visum" => "No visa requirement"). When travelling via Copenhagen you probably need a visa for Denmark. though, however the border crossing between Denmark and Sweden is no hassle by train with no customs at all as you already have arrived in the EU/Schengen.
[edit] Venue options
- Blekinge Institute of Technology main campus in Karlskrona - http://www.bth.se/eng
[edit] Lodging
This is the main problem. Getting rooms in one or more hotels are not a big problem but they are located at the city center rather than at the University campus. In walking distance this is about 30-40 minutes (local bus connection is good, though).
We've identified at least four hotels having 500 rooms in total. Outside of that there are some smaller motel type facilities and youth hostels.
[edit] Day trip
- Offical tourist information
- With World Heritage located in the city center, it pretty much assumes we can find something to do. With or without leaving the main venues.
[edit] Local team
- Martin Bagge, visited DebConf10, DebCOnf11 and DebConf12
Have shown interest, mostly with none to little previous experience.
- Niclas Björner
- Martin Vesterlund
- Andreas Karlsson
- Lars Ollén
[edit] Sponsors
- Ideas are floating around but no commitment done.
