The village of Les Houches is nested in the valley of Chamonix right beneath the Mont-Blanc in one of the most dramatic parts of the french Alps. The session XX of the Predoc School series will take place in a hamlet of mountain chalets surrounded by meadows and woods located at an altitude of 1150 meters. Lodging and meals are provided to every participant. A library and a few meeting rooms are made available around the clock for students and researchers.
Arrivals are scheduled on Sunday August 28 in the afternoon whereas departures will take place on Friday September 9 after lunch. The registration fees include the lodging in single rooms as well as the three daily meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner). They amount to 450 euros for PhD students and to 650 euros for postdocs. They must be paid upon arrival to the secretary of the Les Houches conference center. A few fellowships will be granted to PhD students only in order to partially cover their registration fees.
Telephone : (33) (0)4 50 54 40 69 - from Monday to Friday at office hours only.
Fax : (33) (0)4 50 55 53 25
E-mail : secretariat.houches@ujf-grenoble.fr
You may contact participants at meals hours
- from 12h30 to 13h30 and from 19h30 to 20h30 -
by directly calling the restaurant of the conference center at
(33) (0)4 50 54 41 24
Coffee, tea (free!) and liqueurs are available at the cafeteria
located just beneath the dining room.
Breakfast : from 8:00 am to 8:45 am -
Lunch : at 12:30 am -
Dinner : at 7:30 pm.
The cafeteria has a piano, baby-foots and table tennis. A few montain bikes are available.
Participants are housed in chalets. All the buildings have now been
renovated.
Most rooms are single occupancy. However please read our
warning.
Electricity: AC - 50Hz - 220V.
A flashlight is handy at night. The
school chalets are scattered on the
mountainside and outside light
may be poor - power failures, storms and even star parties.
You may have a look at the weather forecast at les Houches and in the Chamonix Valley.
The Les Houches Village is directly connected to Geneva airport by bus.
For availability
and timetables, click first on the
Geneva airport web site,
then on Public Transportation
and eventually on Ski
stations. You can then download the Aeroskibus timetable
pdf file.
You can also
make an on-line reservation on the
Altibus web site - if you
understand french !
From Geneva
main bus station
located at the center of Geneva to the Les Houches Village :
take the bus going to
Chamonix and get off at the stop
Office du Tourisme - tourist center
-
of Les Houches. For the bus timetable, download the pdf file
here
and have also a look at
the
Geneva bus station website
or at the
tourist information center
of Geneva.
Note however that the bus service is not convenient. First, it is not frequent.
Second, the bus
stops in the village of Les Houches which is still 4 kilometers
away from the School. If you
do not want to climb on foot, we advise you to take
a taxi. The fare amounts to about 12 euros.
You need to make a reservation by
calling
(33) (0)4 50 54 41 76 or
(33) (0)4 50 54 41 09.
Geneva Airport is 1 hour driving from les Houches. There is a regular
bus service between Geneva and
Les Houches - see the section on
local buses from Geneva.
It is also possible to use a private limousine service but you need to
make a reservation on the Airport
Transfer System
web site. A shared transfer
between Geneva and the Chamonix Valley amounts to
about 40 euros one way.
For further updated information on Geneva airport, see the site of the
airport.
From France, arrival at Les Houches railway station, with one change at
Saint-Gervais. There are about 10 trains
daily between Saint-Gervais
and Les Houches whose railway station is about 5 kilometers from the Centre
de Physique
that is uphill. Once again, if you do not want to walk all
the way up, we strongly advise you to take a taxi. The fare
amounts to
about 12 euros. You need to make a reservation by calling
(33) (0)4 50 54 41 76 or
(33) (0)4 50 54 41 09.
For other fares, the updated train timetable and reservations, you can consult
the French Railways site.
Les Houches are easily accessible from France - A41 highway - from Switzerland
- by Martigny and Col des Montets -
and from Italy - by the
Mont-Blanc tunnel which has now been re-opened.
From Geneva and Le Fayet : 8 kilometers before Chamonix, 300 m after passing
under the second tunnel, bear right
by the first road out for
"Les Houches Les Trabets". When arriving at the cable car station
"Bellevue", turn right
and continue upwards - roughly 2 kilometers
starting from the teleferic. 500 meters after the cable car station
"Prarion",
turn left and follow small arrows at crossroads.
Continue up to the end of la route de la Côte des Chavants.
There you are !
From Chamonix : bear right for "Les Houches-Chef-Lieu", turn right in
Les Houches, go ahead at the cable car station
"Bellevue". Then proceed
as above.
Click
here for detailed road maps.
Cars may be rented from Geneva and from Chamonix,
but making a reservation would
be a save idea.
For those who would nevertheless need to relax, we suggest the observation
of the night sky. Conditions are quite good
at the School - when the sky is
clear... - in spite of the lights of les Houches and Chamonix. As an example,
here are
pictures of Sagittarius and of the Hale-Bopp comet taken from the School :
gif (175 Ko)
jpeg (20 Ko) - gif (170 Ko)
The Astronomy Club of Chamonix has good instruments and organizes very nice
star parties in the mountains - at the col
de Balme, 2200 meters - during summer.
Contact Observatoire du Mont-Blanc, 67 Lacets du Belvédère,
74400 Chamonix
and call 04 50 53 45 16.
During the week-end, Chamonix and its surroundings are ideal for hiking
and climbing.
For more informations, click
here
or visit the
Les Houches tourist information
web page.
