ou'll find no axes to grind in TWEnJ.
Our interest is in trying to help you enjoy travel as much as we have. No tours to sell;
no tickets to issue; no hotel commissions. It's a not-for-profit operation*.
After more than 80 trips to Europe we know the difference between excellent, good, so-so and forgettable. We wish pages like these had been around thirty years ago. We'd have enjoyed our travels much more if we'd had something like this to help us select the best from among the top sights and destinations, and reliable information about excursions, walks, tours, hotels, restaurants and the like.
If you're curious about what we're trying to provide in this website and would like to learn how we think it's best used, see Using TWEnJ.
ho are Ed and Julie? Middle-aged
Americans who enjoy writing and travel. A business
woman and retired business
executive. Careers that sent us to Europe, willingly or not.
It's been a rare year in the last 40 when at least one of us didn't cross the Atlantic, often several times a year. Fortunately something clicked on those first trips and we've taken great pleasure from travel ever since.
Early in our travels we "found" Rome and Switzerland, and more than half our trips to Europe have been to these favorite spots. We feel 'at home' there as much as we do the US Midwest.
hy these pages? Much of the fun and
lore we've gained on our trips has come from generous sharing of others. TWEnJ is our way
of saying, "Thank you."
As one of our recent visitors wrote,
"Heaven knows what prompts you to put so much hard work into a non-profit site. Pure
goodness? Plain madness?" 
ow did the site begin? Sort of like
Topsy, "It jus' growed."
Some of the pages were begun 30 years ago in helping friends by writing out, in longhand, directions for things to see and do, where to eat and sleep in Rome and Switzerland. In '94 we began answering questions on the AOL Travel Message Boards.
Somehow it gradually spiraled out of control. Fingers worn from typing each answer anew turned to creating web pages. In '96 we began publishing on the web and now have over 235 articles and 350,000 words, including many from three dozen guest contributors. (That all comes to about the equivalent of five or six novels!) And we've retained, we hope, the feel of writing to friends about our favorite travel ideas.
he pages have amused and enlightened
during more than visits (not hits) since November,
1996. Occasionally we rile some when we don't promote their product, service, property ...
or anything else we find less than first-rate from our personal experience or reliable
friends. Fortunately we're making friends at a record pace, running over 2,000 visits per
day in peak.
And we do hear from our visitors: we receive two or three e-mails a day on average with questions, tips, orchids, and the occasional onion.
You may find major sources of our traffic of interest.
xperience
has taught us about 
Sights
o publication would be complete
without a dedication. Ed's is to Julie, the more important part of the title, best friend,
wonderful spouse, die-hard encourager and supportive travel companion. Most of these trips
and the good memories wouldn't have been possible without her.
rowse away and take whatever might
make your trip more enjoyable. In return, when you have the chance to help others enjoy
your favorite spots, do it! You'll be doubly rewarded for your travels.
irst published on Sound.Net, August,
1996. Relocated to QNI.com March 28, 1997. Re-christened on our own domain on February 2,
1998. Text and graphics total nearly eight megabytes.
ell XPS 550 (Pentium III) with 256
MB of RAM and a 20 GB harddrive. Editors include MS Front Page and TextPad. For
FTP we like WS_FTP. Our graphics are managed with Corel Photo-Paint 7, MS Image Composer
and Adobe Image Styler ... the latter highly recommended, though no longer
sold. Server logs are analyzed using Marketwave's HitList, also no longer available. We
use a number of other tools, including Search and Replace which we find invaluable.