Last updated: December 3rd, 2015
ICIQ 2016 (July) will be held in the School of Computer Science (Escuela Superior de Informática) at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, in Ciudad Real.
Ciudad Real (which means ‘Royal City’ in Spanish) is a city located in the Southern Central part of Spain, in the region of Castilla-La Mancha, which is the “Don Quixote” region. It is not easy to categorize Castilla-La Mancha, since it is a region of great variety and complexity. On the one hand, there is the ruddy red earth, the windmills, and simple whitewashed villages of the province of Ciudad Real (which encompasses most of the area commonly called La Mancha). Besides, there are also the strangely sculpted cliffs of Cuenca and Albacete, the hilly woodlands of Guadalajara and the dark mystery and ancient cultures of Toledo.It is perfectly located for transport connections, as it is only 1 hour away from the main cities of Spain: Madrid (1 hr by high speed train), Barcelona (less than 1 hour by plane), Toledo (1 hr by car), Córdoba (70 minutes by high speed train) and Sevilla (2 hr by high speed train).
Ciudad Real is a very modern city considered as one of the most recommendable Spanish cities to live in. It is an extraordinary place where everything is very nearby and you can find the services and facilities that you need. Citizens are very friendly and they love outdoors, enjoying weather and people. Their hospitality and open-mindedness make visiting the city an unforgettable experience that no one should miss. By the time of ICIQ, parks and terraces will be fraught with people having dinner.
The most convenient way to arrive in Ciudad Real for foreign visitors is by High-Speed train. You can get Ciudad Real from Madrid in 55 minutes. Besides, you can go from Ciudad Real to Seville in approximately 1 hour and 44 minutes, to get to Valencia it takes 2 hours and 9 minutes and to reach Barcelona it takes 3 hours and 44 minutes.
If you come to Spain by air and have landed in the Adolfo Suárez airport Madrid-Barajas, you should commute to Atocha Train Station. You have a wide range of choices:
You can buy your train tickets online, via travel agency, or onsite (less recommendable). There are two kind of high-speed trains going to Ciudad Real; AVANT and AVE. Both take the same time, but AVANT is cheaper (about 22€). For further information about tickets or schedules, you can visit this link. Finally, once you are in Ciudad Real, you can order a taxi to your hotel - we do not have suburb :) , and hotels do not usually provide transfer services
