International Summer School on Usability-Driven Software Architecture, August 22-24, 2005

<- back to mainpage

Travel information

Venue information

Tampere is the second largest city of Finland with a population of 200 000 people. The city was founded int the 1779 on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids. Tampere has evolved in the most highly industrialized city of Finland during the last century and it has become an important centre of education and research of Southern Finland. You can find more information about Tampere at the pages of The City of Tampere and about its history at the pages of Power from the Rapids.

Tampere University of Technology (TUT) was founded in 1965. Until 1972 TUT was under the administration of HUT (Helsinki University of Technology. In the beginning TUT had 132 students, nowadays the number of students is about 12 000. Campus is located at Hervanta, suburb at south side of Tampere. Hervanta has almost 26 000 inhabitants, many of them are students.

In summer, the mean daily temperature is consistently above 10°C. The highest temperatures are from 32°C to 35°C.

How to get to Tampere

There are several alternatives to reach Tampere:

By air: Tampere has an international airport, Tampere-Pirkkala, located about 17 km from the city downtown. There are direct flights from Helsinki (30 min.) with Finnair, from Stockholm (50min) and Copenhagen (1h 40min) with SAS. Ryanair also has direct flights to Tampere from London (Stansted), Frankfurt (Hahn) and Riga. From the airport you can reach Tampere downtown by taxi (journey takes about 20 min) or airport taxi. If your international flight lands at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, the easiest way to reach Tampere is by plane (30min) of by coach (~2h 30min).

By train: Comfortable and reliable trains connect Tampere and Helsinki city centers. Trains depart every hour (except during the night) and the journey taks about two hours. The timetable is available at the Finnish Railway website. There is no train connection from the Helsinki-Vantaa airport to Helsinki downtown or to Tampere, but you can reach Helsinki downtown by taxi, bus #615 (40min, 3,40€), Finnair bus (35min, 5,20€) or airport taxi.

By bus: There is an extensive bus service network that connects major and minor cities. There is regular service to/from Turku (~2h 40min), Helsinki (~2h 30min) and Jyväskylä (~2h 30min). You can find the timetable at the Express bus -pages.

By boat: You can also reach Finland with a luxury cruise on the Baltic sea. There is daily service from Stockholm to Turku and Helsinki and from Tallin to Helsinki. It is probably the most relaxing way of approaching Finland by visiting the Finnish archipelago. You can visit the homepages of the cruise companies for timetables and booking: Silja Line, Viking line, Tallink, Eckerö Line.

By car: Driving in Finland is rather simple and easy. You should keep an eye on the frequent animal crossings, especially on countryside roads. The distances to cover are often rather long. You can rent a car from the major car rental companies either at the airports or in the city downtown.

How to get to Hervanta?

From Tampere downtown you can reach Hervanta by bus. The lines #13, #30 and #20 take you right next to the campus. The fare is 2€.

More information:

Virtual Finland
Map of Tampere
Accommodations in Tampere
Weather in Finland

<- back to mainpage