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April 4, 2008

After finishing the Laguardia pages I have turn my attention to the Ireland and England websites. Much of my attention has been on fixing outdated links and page set ups but new content is coming. Allison has started writing a piece on Ireland Gardens and I have been working on a B&B FAQ. We have also been doing some writing for a planned USA Travel Magazine.

It was near death but the Travel and Tattle website now seems to be on stable life support. There are still a few problems with getting it to function properly on the server but we now have hope of full recovery.

February 28, 2008

Well, the bad news is that we have run in to a big snag on Travel and Tattle I do not know when we will get this site on-line.

The good news is we have started to do some basic planning for the 2008 Europe trip. Allison and I are thinking we might do a rail trip from Barcelona to Rome for 2008.

January 24, 2008

I have been putting off writing in the Journal hoping the next entry would be made on the Travel And Tattle website but we ran in to a snag with the server. We are getting very, very close to launching Travel And Tattle. The Travel And Tattle site had to be moved to a new server and it will be a while before it is ready for use by the general public.

One by product of the first server not being usable for Travel And Tattle is that I ended up with a paid server with no website on it. So, a site I had not plan to launch until 2009 now has some holding pages. You can take a look at it, www.EuropeTopTravels.com . Since it lacks any original content I am not going to make any hyperlinks to it yet.

The thinking is to make Europe Top Travels a on-line travel magazine on Europe. Besides articles by Allison and me, we are hoping to show case the work of professional and inspiring travel writers in the magazine.

October 23, 2008

Have you every worked a lot and have little to show for it? That is kind of how I am feeling at the moment.

Over the past 8 weeks other priorities got in the way of me completing the Zaragoza Guide. One of the distractions has been the long expected and, I think, possibly, maybe, almost here, addition to the travel sites I have talk with some of you about. There is still a number of bugs to work out and I may be jumping the gun in talking about it now. Never the less, I have started to add some "nonfunctioning" links with the title of "Travel And Tattle". Travel And Tattle will be a website about sharing and dreaming about travel. Visitors to the site will be able to upload their travel tips, stories and interact with other travelers. It is my hope to use the features of the new site and integrate them with the travel guides. If you want to be one of the first to try out the new website, send me an e-mail (contact link at the bottom of the page), I will add you to the list.

Travel and Tattle is under development by a third party and recently I have had to think about its over all design. I work better with design when I can play with the design directly and move things around. Consequently, I started testing out some design ideas with the long neglected Travel Store. Travel and Tattle will not look like the travel store but will likely share the banner photograph.

The Travel Store has always been my neglected project, poorly designed from the start. Given that Travel and Tattle will be a world travel site I decided to change the Travel Store's focus to be more of a travel portal. I am not done with changes to the Travel Store but at the moment. I am not certain where my focus will be in November. I want to return to the Zaragoza Guide project but then Christmas is coming, should I be focusing on Christmas travel gifts for the travel store. I have no idea how Travel and Tattle is going to proceed, it may dictate my time usage over the coming months. And then there is next year's trip to Europe, it is not too early to start planning for that.

August 6, 2008

I have started on the Zaragoza Travel Guide. For those seeking a sneak-peek you can check out the Aljafería Palace pages, I will not provide links from the Zaragoza top page until I have the Zaragoza Travel Guide completed. I am expecting the project to take two months or so.

July 12, 2008

Just a note to let everyone know I am still around.

I was under the weather for a couple of weeks in early June (actually this is the first week I have really felt good for several months). Like normal, I am behind on all my projects. With a little bit of luck, in August, there will be an exciting new addition to the Travel Guides. It has been in the planning stages for over a couple of years, it should help to make the travel guides more accurate and offer more travel content for the website visitor. While I am not ready to give out the details (I have yet to see the product work myself) we should start testing in August, I will be looking for volunteers to help; keep watching.

Update on the travel store, if you do not see a photo for the product, likely the link to the product is bad. My major supplier has change their program; moved to another system. I will need to completely redo the travel store if I am going to remain with the supplier. It is a little difficult to justify spending the time on the travel store at this time but perhaps late this fall you will see some changes.

I have done a few minor updates this week. In the safe travel section I added some information on reporting theft. The spain train section now gives some information about using the RENFE website for figuring out connections and booking point to point train tickets through the RENFE website.

May 17, 2007

I finally added a little more content to the Ireland Guide, just uploaded a number of new photographs and pages on the Giant's Causeway. It was kind of nice to take a break from the Spain Guide.

I have had high speed internet access for about a year and a half now. Since moving off dial up I have tended to use less file compression in photographs, as file compression causes photographs to lose their rich colors and detail. More of you have moved to higher resolution settings on your monitors too, so I have been making the photos larger. Bigger files are fine for those with high speed internet connection but I do worry about those of you on dial up. Are the travel guide websites becoming less useful for you with slower internet connection? Feedback and suggestions always appreciated, just E-mail Jerrold (e-mail contact link is at bottom of the about us page).

April 16, 2007

Today uploaded an article on the Holy Week festival done by the same people that wrote the Fallas fiesta article for me. While the article focus is on the Seville festival, it does a good job of describing any of the Holy Week festivals in Andalusia.

I continue to do some uploads to the Valencia City Guide pages, most recently adding a number of pages on La Lonja. While I have been distracted by a number of other todo's, I should have the Valencia pages completed fairly soon. I should then work on Zaragoza but then, I am thinking I should also work on the hotel reviews before the memories start fading.

PS: if anyone is wondering why the photos are not working in the travel store, I do not know, I e-mailed Magellan's months ago and have never received a reply. I think I am going to have too rethink the Travel Store, it takes up way too much of my time for the financial return.

January 30, 2007

The Valencia pages are taking more time than I anticipated, I have spent way to much time on the Cathedral pages and I still think I need to revisit them for a little rewrite. This month, I blew several days on the Travel Store, most of the links were bad and revenue from it had became none existent. I am probably repeating myself but, I really prefer working on the travel content over the commercial stuff. But, my wife is looking at 2008 as her potential retirement year, so I need to focus a little more on the commercial aspect of the site.

If you have not taken a look at the las Fallas pages, do so; I did not write them but putting this section together has made me really want to visit this festival.

December 13, 2006

I am uploading all the new pages I have done, there should be about 40 of them. It will take most of 2007 for me to expand on the content for all the new cities for the Spain guides and I still need to add additional content for a few cities I visited in 2003. I will start uploading the Rioja wine tour first then the rest of the pages should follow.

I was looking over some of the "thank you" e-mails I received this year and one of them mention how they too loved "sometimes, stinky" Ronda, which made me smile and reminded me of my recent visit there. When I received the e-mail earlier in 2006, I did not recall what the author meant by "stinky" Ronda. On returning to the city this October, my wife and I were coming up from the Arab baths, making our way back to the central city, when we caught the smell of sewage. I then recalled, I too had smelled this on my first vista to the Ronda, I just had forgotten. Now, Ronda really is not that stinky for the most part, just this particular area. But, what this "thank you e-mail" and my second visit to Ronda has gotten me to think about, is the fallacy of memory. As I walked around Ronda there were a couple of things that were different than I remembered them. Some of the difference may be due to updating and reconstruction by the city since my first visit, i.e. more signs in English, wider and nicer paths. Still, some difference from my recollections definitely were due to recalling things wrong, for example. the dating of the reconstructed gate in Ronda. For the most part, I think my guides are fairly accurate but my mind, and my hearing, not to mention my judgment, do trick me on occasion. I guess it is reader beware.

November 27, 2006

We had an excellent three weeks in Spain, though we were a bit rushed at time. I have a new appreciation for northern Spain and the Basque country, almost every place we ate there had exceptional food. And, while I almost hate to admit it, our resort visit to the Costa del Sol was very relaxing; someday we hope to take the whole family there. The wine tours were something too, while only occasional drinkers of wine, we came away from the wine and sherry tours with a new appreciation for the drink.

Since we returned, my wife has been reading up on wine and it looks like it is becoming a regular feature at our dinner table. For myself, it was the sherries that impressed me. We brought a couple of bottles of Spanish sherry back with us (one a 30 year reserve) but once we drink them up we fear it may be difficult to acquire the same quality here in the states.

I have been busy working on new content for the Spain guide. First up will be a review on the resort in Marbella and our wine tour in the Rioja region. I almost have them ready for publishing and will provide a link from this Journal page in a few days, as a sneak peek. I need to complete about 12 city top pages before I can add all the new city links. I think we are looking at mid December to add about 30 to 40 new pages, then I will be concentrating on getting the Valencia section done first.

September 28, 2006

Looking over the England Guide I know there is sections I should rewrite and there is at least one factual correction I need to do (we did not have sunshine all the time we were there, it should read, we had no rain) Never the less, I need to stop working on the site now. I believe I have taken care of all the dead links, but some sections will need to wait until I can devote time again to it and the Ireland guide, probably around mid 2007.

My attention now is getting everything set here for winter and starting the planning for my up coming Spain trip. Recognizing I have way too much to do before the trip, I will not be checking, or answering, e-mails for a while, and then of course, I will be gone. On return, I have high hopes of writing a massive increase of content for the Spain Guide with major uploads during 2007.

Look for a new entry here in a couple of months.

September 12, 2006

Ok, time for a sneak peek at the England Guide, this link will take you to the Hurlers page . I have uploaded the pages I have done so far, try the content pages in the left column, most of them have at least some content. At the moment, the links at the top of the page, for the most part, are dead links.

August 4, 2006

My son and I have returned from the UK. We are trying to get as much of the 'England' pages done as we can, before he heads off to the University and my wife and I head off to Spain. Writing does not come easy for me and when I have to force my self to write, it seems to be even harder. But, I really have to keep cracking at it. Once I go to Spain, it will become much harder to draw up my impressions and memories of England. At the moment, I am just trying to get thoughts on the page, trying to recall as much as I can. What I have completed so far, is too rough, even to offer up to the web site visitor as a 'sneak peek', but I will try to get some of the early drafts up in a couple of months.

Southern England was much hotter than I expected, hitting close to 37 C, isn't that close to 100 F? We had a good time but the heat tired me, making me cut my days short.

While in England I left my master web site file with an ex-English teacher and was able to get my spain pages edited. Hopeful, this will improve their readability. Never the less, I am not planning to upload the edited pages until I can go through each page and update my commercial linking. Many of the commercial links are to be phased out in about 6 months, so I will need to go in and update every page on the Spain web site

June 22, 2006

Seems like time is really getting away from me. My son's renewed passport arrived, so this last weekend I was able to buy the air flight tickets to the UK. But, that is as far as I have gotten in my planning. All I know at this time is that I want to spend about four nights in London. I need to do a complete travel itinerary, similar to the one I did for Spain. I have placed an example of how I build an itinerary at Spain itinerary on-line. Perhaps you will find the format useful for planning your own trips.

June 16, 2006

My wife and I have bought our plane tickets for a fall trip to Spain. Initial plans are for us to fly in to Madrid and take the AVI train south to spend a few nights in Jerez de la Frontera. From there we want to visit Ronda; it has been a few years since my last visit. We are planning a drive around the white villages (pueblos blancos) and then a few nights in Marbella.

For some time, I have wanted to do a section on the Costa del Sol for the Spain Guide. I have traveled the region a few times, but I generally do not encourage travel to this region. My impression of the region is, basically, unending beach resorts with mountains in the background. A pleasant enough place (I can see why Europeans take their vacations there), but the richness of Spain is really beyond this stretch of beach. Nevertheless, the Costa del Sol and Marbella are very popular traveler destinations, so a few nights in Marbella seem unavoidable.

After Marbella we plan to fly to Bibao or San Sebastian to explore the region, including Pamplona, La Rioja and Zaragoza (Zaragoza is hosting Expo in 2008).

From Zaragoza I expect we will be visiting Valencia (Valencia – host of 2007’s America Cup). Then we'll wrap up our three week visit to Spain with a return to Madrid before flying back to the U.S.A.

June 10, 2006

Where to start. First , my apologies for neglecting the content side of the guides for the pass year or so. The good news is that I only have one major project left now to distract me from the travel guides. While the travel guides will not have my full attention, they will become the top priority in a few weeks.

It looks like a UK trip will occur this year. My son has agreed to go with me on a two week visit to England. He will be providing some of the photos and writing for the Traveling In England web- site. An excellent writer who demonstrated recently an eye for photography, I am hoping he will provide a youthful perspective to the UK guide. Photo right: Taken by my son during a school trip last year in Toledo, Spain. Once my son and I return from the UK, we will be working like mad on the England Guide. A Spain trip is very much in the plans for this year. Working with the Spain Travel Agency I used previously to plan my Spain itinerary, I will be covering a lot of ground and exploring some Unique Experiences for the guide.

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