Welcome to beautiful Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland. On the northern end of the Swiss Alps, Zurich is a scenic center of commerce and research. The Sensys conference is held at the Main Building of ETH Zurich, which is located in the heart of the city. You will have beautiful views of the lake and the surrounding mountains right from the ETH Main Building.
Zurich airport is located to the north of Zurich and easily accessible via public transportation.
Public transportation is very convenient, typically a station is very close. Public transportation typically runs from 5.30am till about midnight. The city of Zurich is divided into fare zones. Depending on where you travel to, you need to pay a different amount depending on the number of zones you are passing. At the vending machine you have to enter the destination and whether your ticket is valid for 1 or 24 hours. Most of Zurich is within zone 10. Special (outside) locations such as the airport require a 3-zone ticket. Tickets must be purchased before boarding and can be used for trains, trams, buses and ship within the validity range of your ticket. For more information see the homepage of Zurich public transportation. We can recommend the Zurich Card. The Zurich Card is valid for 72 hours and allows you to travel within zone 10 and all surrounding zones (including the airport).
If you travel from the airport to the city centre (Main Station, in german: “Zürich HB”), you should travel by S-Bahn or train. The trains leave from the station “Zürich Flughafen”. The train station in the airport is on the lower floor. You may take any train heading to “Zürich HB” (Main Station).
Journey time: about 10 minutes
The tram station is in front of the airport building. Take tram no. 10 (direction Bahnhofplatz/HB) to tram stop “ETH/Universitätsspital”.
The airport tram operates daily from 6 am to 11 pm. with trams departing every 7 to 15 minutes.
Journey time: 30 minutes
The conference hotels can be booked at out partner Zurich Tourism.
Hotel Limmathof is in short walking distance from the Main Station (to ETH approx 15 min).
Hotel Comfort Inn Royal and Hotel Sunnehus are in short walking distance to ETH (to Main Station approx 10 min).
For Hotel St. Georges you walk to the tram station Stauffacher. From there you can take tram 9 to ETH or tram 3, 13 or 14 to the Main Station.
For Hotel Ibis Zürich City-West, you walk to station Hardbrücke. There are regular trains to the Main Station.
The conference is located in the ETH Main Building (german: “ETH Hauptgebäude”). You can see an overview of the conference site at the ETH webpage. If you take public transport, you need a ticket for zone 10.
Tram no. 6 (direction Zoo) to tram stop “ETH/Universitätsspital”.
Journey time: about 6 minutes
Tram no. 10 (direction Flughafen or Bahnhof Oerlikon) to tram stop “ETH/Universitätsspital”
Journey time: about 8 minutes
Polybahn (departing every 3 minutes) to the Polyterrasse.
Walking takes approx. 10-15 minutes.
Switzerland predominantly uses Type J-power plug. Type C (Europlug 2.5 A/250 V ungrounded) work as well. They all run on 220v. Bring a converter and check out the wikipedia entry.
The swiss franc (CHF) is the currency of Switzerland. The smaller denomination, a hundredth of a franc, is called “Rappen“ in German. 100CHF costs 96USD or 75Euro as of August 19.
As Google has an office in Zurich, we have all the nice features in Google Maps that one needs: Walking directions and directions with the public transport are available. Additionally, most of downtown Zurich has street view data. This facilitates getting around. Public transportation maps and schedules can be found at the ZVV page. Specifically, a network plan of public transport around ETH and Main Station can be found at http://www.zvv.ch/en/routes-and-zones/city-zurich-network.html.
Coming to Zurich offers the possibility to visit beautiful Switzerland. For information on activities in Zurich refer to Zurich Tourism. For information on Switzerland visit My Switzerland.
A visa letter will be provided by the conference organizers AFTER the registration and payment. Further information on visas for Switzerland can be found here and here. More information will follow when the registration is online.