Grand Meeting 2007 at Lake Mývatn
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Map of Iceland – click for big version: "Reykjahlíð" in the upper
right quarter of the map is our meeting venue. |
Travel information
Participants should in most cases arrange and book their tickets to Iceland by themselves. Some suggestions follow below. For local transportation in Iceland (and extra arrangement before or after the meeting) participants may seek help and advice with Gestamottakan/Your Host in Iceland which is helping out with the practicalities in connection with the meeting: they can get favorable discounts with the domestic airline Air Iceland (but notice that you may get even more favorably priced tickets when booking through Air Iceland's home page).
We expect the following to be the two main ways in which people will travel to the Grand Meeting:
a. Iceland Express, a low cost
airline, is operating a direct route between Copenhagen and Akureyri
Wednesdays and Mondays in the summer season of 2007. Akureyri is the
closest bigger town to Lake Mývatn. For many participants this route
will probably be the cheapest and most convenient way of travelling to
the Grand Meeting, for instance by flying to Iceland on Wednesday 15
and back to Copenhagen Monday 20. Participants who go for this option
should book tickets themselves (and the sooner the better). (Notice
however that Iceland Express does
not offer connections with other flights, so those who need a
connecting flight should leave plenty of time for new check-in in
Copenhagen.)
b. We are assuming that some participants would rather fly
through Reykjavík (Keflavík) – e.g. those that are not coming from
Scandinavia. There are flights from Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm,
London, etc. to Keflavík every day – in some instances several times a
day – and there are a number of flights from Reykjavik to Akureyri
every day. Beware however that the international airport at Keflavík
and the domestic one in the center of Reykjavík lie far apart and that
you should calculate a few hours for the transfer if you want to continue
directly. (Over the summer Icelandair has some direct flights from Keflavík to Akureyri at 18:00 on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays and from Akureyri to Keflavík the same weekdays at 05:50, operated in connection with their international flights and bookable via the Icelandair home page.)
The distance from Akureyri to Myvatn, where the meeting will be held, is some 100 km. There is a scheduled bus every morning from Akureyri, but we will in addition organize one or more buses to shuttle groups of participants that arrive at a different time of the day. It is therefore imperative that participants inform the organizers of their arrival time in Akureyri as soon as they know.
Iceland Express also have direct
flights between Copenhagen and Egilsstaðir on Tuesdays and Fridays the
coming summer: Egilsstaðir lies about 170 km to the east of Mývatn.
Notice furthermore that Iceland Express offers one way economy tickets
so that it is possible to combine a flight to or from Akureyri with one
to or from Egilsstaðir or Reykjavík (Keflavík). The SAS
group also offers one way economy tickets,
although only to and from Reykjavík, but if you consider flying either
in or out of Reykjavík, one advantage with SAS is that they offer
connections to other destinations. (There is a direct route between
Oslo and Reykjavík five days a week in August and between Stockholm and
Reykjavík two days a week in August). In any event there are plenty of
options to tailor make your travel to Iceland by combining various one
way tickets if you're up for that.
For the more adventurous ones and those who can spend more time on the
travel it is also possible to come by ship. The ferry from Norway
(Bergen), Denmark (Hanstholm), Scotland (Scrabster), and the Shetland
Islands (Lerwick) via the Faroe Islands docks in Seyðisfjörður, close
to Egilsstaðir, every Thursday morning at 09.00 in the summer – this is therefore a viable travel option given that the meeting program will start around noon on Thursday 16. See the Smyril Line
homepage for further information.
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