SIGCOMM 2006 will be held in Pisa, Italy, from Monday, 11 september 2006, to Friday, 15 september 2006. Google Maps has a nice aerial view of the town. You can see the river Arno cutting the town, with the conference location (Stazione Leopolda) on the left of the bridge at the bottom right of the picture. Most hotels are in the area between Piazza dei Miracoli/Leaning Tower (top on the left side) and the Arno.

Zooming out on the map, you will see that Pisa is located on the coast of Tuscany, central Italy, approximately 80km (50 miles) from Florence.

Pisa is served by the local International airport, Galileo Galilei located 2km from downtown - in fact, it is within walking distance from the conference site!

There are daily flights from most european hubs, as well as several other european cities served by low-cost companies -- see e.g. a snapshot of today's arrivals.

For the rules to enter Italy, please check the Visa Pages from the official site of the Italian "Ministero degli Esteri". To check whether or not you need a visa, go to the Do you need a visa page (the category to look for is probably Tourism, but please double check with your an italian embassy/consulate near to you. There is no specific category for 'Attending to a Conference', and the 'Student' or 'Teacher' categories refer to an involvement with an educational or research institution in Italy).

In case you need, ACM can provide a standard letter to support your VISA application and describing the conference and your relation to it (e.g. author, travel grant recipient, etc.). Please contact Stephanie Smith at ACM (smith_s at hq.acm.org) to request such a letter to be written for you - do not ask the General Chair or the various Chairs to write supporting documentation because they cannot do that for you.

Please understand that the above is all we can do to support your visa application, and whether the letter from ACM is sufficient or not to get you a VISA is not under our control.

Also note that the 'invitation letter' such as the one suggested as an alternative to the proof of lodging is not something we can write for you as it involves legal and economic liability of the signer of the letter.