The Colloquium will take place in the Alan Turing Building of the Laboratoire d'Informatique (LIX) of the Ecole Polytechnique. All the talks will be held in the lecture hall Salle Gilles Kahn located on the ground floor of the building.
To enter the building, you may need to push the call button so that the receptionist can let you in. Tell the receptionist that you are attending the LIX colloquium and remember to pick up your name tag and WiFi signup information. The building also supports Eduroam.
The Polytechnique campus is located on the Plateau de Saclay in the southern suburbs of Paris. The nearest airport is Paris Orly, but you will most likely only find flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle. The greater Paris area is also served by numerous European train lines: the nearest high speed rail (TGV) station is Massy-Palaiseau.
The Alan Turing Building is on the west side of the Polytechnique campus (below the legend in the following map):
The Polytechnique is served by the RER-B regional train line to and from Paris. Look for trains going to Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse (towards LIX) or Aéroport Charles de Gaulle (towards Paris). Budget about 1 hour of travel time from LIX to the Paris centre ville.
We strongly recommend that you alight at the Massy-Palaiseau RER-B train station and take a bus to the campus. The following buses serve the Polytechnique: 91.06 B, 91.06 C, and 91.10; these buses will say either via Polytechnique or via Moulon. Do not get on 91.06 A or 91.06 D – they have no stops in the Polytechnique and will instead go via Martinière. Tickets (t+) may be bought on the bus or from any train or métro station. At the Polytechnique, there are three stops for the above buses. Get off at the last stop, named “Polytechnique Laboratoires”. The Alan Turing Building is just to the north-east of the stop.
An alternative is to stay on the RER-B until Lozère, and then walk up the Chemin de l'Ecole Polytechnique (also known as Sentier de l'Ecole Polytechnique), which will take you to the Polytechnique gate near the 91.06 Lozère bus stop in the above map. Be warned that the incline up to the plateau is very steep and will require good cardio-vascular health. It is effectively impossible if you are towing any luggage. Showers are available in the Alan Turing building in case this paragraph does not dissuade you from a foolish adventure – bring a towel and a change of clothes.
Take Exit 9 from the N118, direction Centre Universitaire. On the roundabout, follow the directions to Palaiseau. Go straight on at the next roundabout, and then turn left at the roundabout after that. You should find yourself on Avenue Augustin Fresnel, between Thales and the Institut d'Optique. At the end of the road, past the Polytechnique gate, turn right and then take the first left into the parking lot.
Take the A6, then the A10 towards Chartres. Get off at Palaiseau on the N444 towards Versailles and Cité Scientifique, then the D36 towards Saclay, and finally the D128 in the École Polytechnique direction. Once past the main gate, stay on the Boulvard des Maréchaux until you pass the corral and take a right turn; turn into the parking lot to your right just past the "Laboratoires" bus stop.
The Colloquium Dinner will take place at New Thai Restaurant in Orsay, starting at 19:30. We will travel to the restaurant from the Colloquium in two groups, weather permitting. The majority of the attendees will from a walking group to walk to the restaurant from the Ecole Polytechnique which will take about 30 minutes at a leisurely pace, almost entirely downhill. For those who are not able or unwilling to walk, we will have a small number of cars (2–3) driven by the organizers, with each car able to hold 3–4 passengers. If the weather is unusually bad, the cars and drivers will make multiple trips and we will adjust the timing accordingly.
Catuscia Palamidessi maintains a page of suggestions for hotels near the Polytechnique campus. Staying on campus is not normally possible.