MAIA 2007 Conference:

Multivariate Approximation and Interpolation with Applications

Ålesund, Norway, August 22 - 26, 2007

Arrival and departure

We are encouraging partipants to arrive on the evening of Tuesday 21 August, and depart on the afternoon of Sunday 26 august. The program of talks will begin on Wednesday morning and finish at Sunday lunchtime.

Hotel

We have agreed with the Radisson hotel a special price for the MAIA conference:

• single room with breakfast: NOK 500 (approx. 61 Euros / 82 US dollars)
• double room with breakfasts: NOK 800 (approx. 98 Euros / 132 US dollars)

for any of the five nights between 21 and 26 August. If you want to stay other nights at the hotel you'll be subject to the usual hotel prices.

Please book your room directly through Erik Kvam either by

• email: erik.kvam@radissonsas.com ,or by
• telephone: 00-47-70160024
• (fax: 00-47-70160001).

Lunches and dinners

The hotel serves good food and you can have a nice lunch or dinner (or both) there. Lunch is NOK 175 and dinner (3 courses) NOK 295. However there are several other places to eat in Ålesund.

Talks

When you have booked your flights, please let us know if there are any days you cannot give your talk if you are planning to give one. Also, when it is convenient, please send us the title and abstract of your talk (we expect all talks to last about 30 minutes).

Travel

The airport at Ålesund is called Vigra and is about 18 kilometers from the city centre:
http://www.avinor.no/Norsk/Lufthavner/Alesund_lufthavn,_Vigra/
It seems that the only airline that flies there is SAS Braathens: http://www.sasbraathens.no but there are several flights from Oslo each day. There is a shuttle bus that makes frequent trips between the airport and the town centre. The bus trip is about 25 minutes and the bus stops right outside the hotel. The ticket costs NOK 77 (9.4 Euros / 12.7 US dollars) one way.

If you have (a lot of) time, you could travel to Ålesund from Oslo by bus or by train and bus. The journey will take several hours but will take you through some nice Norwegian countryside. There is no railway station in Ålesund. The closest railway station is at Åndalsnes, which is about 2 hours from Ålesund by bus. Åndalsnes can be reached from Oslo by train.
For trains see NSB's website: http://www.nsb.no/internet/en/index.jhtml
For busses and public transport in general see http://www.rutebok.no/
Ålesund can also be reached from Bergen by boat.

Things to see and do

The hotel is in the centre of the city and within easy walking distance of all the city sights. Ålesund is a pearl of a city built on islands guarding an important entrance to the unspoiled Norwegian fjords. It has the most harmonious concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in Europe. It was rebuilt in this distinctive style with turrets, spires and imaginative ornamentation after a fire in 1904.

From the town centre there is a very pleasant walk up a nearby hilltop which has a panoramic view of the coastline and islands. There is also a cafe and restaurant at the top. There is an acquarium just outside the town centre:
www.atlanterhavsparken.no (45 minutes walk or 5 minutes by car). For more ideas, see a recent review of Ålesund by The Independent:
http://travel.independent.co.uk/article2602872.ece

Excursion

We have organised a bus trip to Geiranger fjord on the Friday and there will no talks that day. Geiranger fjord and the surrounding countryside were recently added to Unesco's World Heritage list. The landscape is considered to be among the most scenically outstanding fjord areas on the planet. The trip includes two ferry trips and lunch at the Union Hotel, Geiranger. The trip will cost about NOK 550, lunch included. Bring your camera.

Proceedings

We plan to publish the proceedings as a special issue of a journal. Paper submissions will be subject to the usual journal style refereeing procedure.