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General Information
This website was originally conceived while Tom was living
as an expatriate in Germany. After doing a little bit of traveling in
the area, he decided that it would be worthwhile to write about these
locations on the web. The originally intended audience were fellow
expatriates looking for places to go and things to do. The early pages
had little text and were limited to convincing the reader that the place was
worth visiting (or in cases, not worth visiting). But as the site
grew, the audience and focus changed toward travelers and curiosity-seekers
around the world, and the pages evolved to true first-person travelogues
simply relating the experienced of being there. Beginning in
2006, while in the US, Tom has going back through the website in an attempt to
make the information more uniform, applying the first-person construct
throughout and being more consistent with the choice of photographs, the layout
of the maps and other graphics, and the type of information available.
This will probably take up to two years to complete, as this is a lengthy and
painstaking process, so your patience is appreciated. The pages
are organized by country, and the subdirectories under
http://www.tompgalvin.com/places
are identified according to their ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 two-letter country code (so
Germany, for example, is
http://www.tompgalvin.com/places/de, and not 'ge' or 'gm' as used
elsewhere). Currently, only Germany is further subdivided into one
directory per state ("Laender"), with the state name spelled out using
underscores in lieu of spaces. Travelogues are generally named <city>.htm
but there are exceptions.
There are three types of pages.
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One-page format is the standard format,
containing prose with three to six photographs in a newspaper layout.
The most common layout contains five photographs. |
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Photo gallery format for locations where it was
better to show more pictures and less text. The main content is
expressed as a table containing eight to fourteen photographs with
captions underneath. |
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Multi-chapter format for large cities or
districts that I visited multiple times and/or had the opportunity to
explore in depth. These would be constructed as an introductory
main page with two or three photographs (repeated from the subchapters)
and a cartoon linking to the chapters. The chapter pages follow
either the one-page or photo gallery format. Most chapters will be
organized geographically, dividing the city or region into subregions.
However, some chapters will be photo galleries covering a specific event
or theme. The chapter file names are given a two-letter code that
is attached to the city file name. For example, Salzburg, Austria
is found at
http://www.tompgalvin.com/at/salzburg.htm. Its chapter
discussing the Hohensalzburg Castle is abbreviated to "_hs" making the
full file name is
http://www.tompgalvin.com/at/salzburg_hs.htm. |
There are also a set of feature stories, lists, and e-cards on
the site. Once the travelogues have been rebuilt, these too will be
overhauled.
Brief History of This Website
In times past, we used to maintain a history page that included
every addition or update. However, that became unwieldy and long, so
instead this summary is offered.
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June 2001 -- The site was first launched with eight
travelogues -- Heidelberg and Cologne, Germany; Strasbourg and Paris, France;
Basel and Rheinfelden, Switzerland; and Sarajevo, Bosnia. Site grew to roughly forty travelogues by the
end of the year. Site was built in Microsoft FrontPage and all photos
managed in Image Composer (which no longer exists). |
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May 2002 -- Second launching of the site as I decided to add
E-Cards, Lists, and Features to the site to cover things outside the realms
of the normal travelogues. Travelogues hit over 100 by this point.
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July 2003 -- Third launching of the site takes place.
Adobe Photoshop replaces Image Composer as the software of choice for
building the maps and pictures. Travelogues number over 250. |
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August 2004 -- Temporarily suspended regular maintenance of the site.
Getting ready to move to the states and had tremendous commitments. |
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January 2006 -- Resumed maintenance of the site, primarily
for the purposes of doing a full site update. All the maps are being
replaced by simpler cartoons, all photos being redone (including significant
retouching, which was not previously done), and several travelogues being
expanded to multiple chapters or photo galleries (trying to be more
consistent on which are which). Also, the content of each page is
being reviewed to remove annoying things like grammatical errors (I won't
promise I'll catch them all). |
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April 2006 -- Temporarily suspended maintenance again as I
was moving. |
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August 2006 -- Finished moving and resumed the full site update. Progress will be slow, so your patience
is appreciated. As of
10/28/2006, the following
updates have been completed. Some completed pages will be corrected
later based on reader comments, but the priority is on plowing through the
full site update. First will be the Places service, followed by the
Features, then Lists, and afterwards I'll decide whether or not to continue
the E-cards or replace them with a different service.
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Sections completed:
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[P - AT] Austria (10 of
10 travelogues, 21 of 21 pages) |
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[P - BE] Belgium (8 of
8 travelogues, 12 of 12 pages) |
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[P - BH] Bosnia and Herzegovina
(1 of 1 travelogues, 2 of 2 pages) |
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[P - CH] Switzerland (13 of 13 travelogues, 14 of 14 pages). |
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[P - CZ] Czech
Republic (2 of 2 travelogues, 7 of 7 pages) |
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[P - DE - BE] Germany >
Berlin (1 of 1
travelogues, 6 of 6 pages) |
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[P - DE - BR] Germany >
Brandenburg (2 of 2
travelogues, 3 of 3 pages) |
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[P - DE - BY] Germany >
Bayern (25 of 25
travelogues, 41 of 41 pages)
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Note: 2 travelogues and 5
pages will be added in next iteration (Rosenheim, Chiemsee plus
3) |
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[P - DE - HB] Germany >
Bremen (1 of 1
travelogues, 4 of 4 pages) |
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[P - DE - HE] Germany
> Hessen (14 of 14
travelogues, 18 of 18 pages) |
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[P - DE - HH] Germany
> Hamburg (1 of 1
travelogues, 1 of 1 pages) |
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[P - DE - NI] Germany
> Niedersachsen
(1 of 1 travelogues, 5 of 5 pages) |
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[P - DE - SH] Germany
> Schleswig-Holstein (1 of 1 travelogues,
2 of 2 pages) |
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[P - DK] Denmark (5 of
5 travelogues, 9 of 9 pages) |
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[P - EE] Estonia (1 of
1 travelogues, 6 of 6 pages) |
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[P - FR] France (18
of 18 travelogues, 35 of 35 pages) |
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[P - HR] Croatia (1 of
1 travelogues, 2 of 2 pages). |
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In progress:
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[P - HU] Hungary (0
of 3 travelogues, 0 of 7 pages) -- Photos, HU_MAIN, BUD+BPV, EGE,
SZE |
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[P - ID] Indonesia
(0 of 0 travelogues, 0 of 1 pages) -- ID_MAIN |
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[P - ID - BL] Indonesia
> Bali (0 of 14
travelogues, 0 of 15 pages) -- Photos, ID_BL_MAIN, BES, GIA, JIM,
KLU, KUT, LBA, LBR, LEM, NUD, SEB, TAM, TNL, UBU, ULU |
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[P - ID - JV] Indonesia
> Java (0 of 9
travelogues, 0 of 14 pages) -- Photos, ID_JV_MAIN, BOG, BOR, CJV,
JAK+AGST, PUN, SEN, TKP, TIL, YOG |
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[P - IE] Ireland (0
of 4 travelogues, 0 of 5 pages) -- Photos, IE_MAIN, COR, POR, WAT,
WCY |
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[P - MC] Monaco (0
of 2 travelogues, 0 of 3 pages) -- Photos, MC_MAIN, M-V, M-C |
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