Why GPS castle tours?
GPS castle tours are so exiting! It all started when in February we did a small castle tour for EveryTrail. After that we did a GPS castle tour for Doug Adomatis' site TravelByGPS.com. Ever since we are excited about geocoding photos. So we started to study the matter and found out that in principle it is simple, but not all given advise is correct and the different programs offer different levels of sophistication and comfort.
RoboGEO
We tested several programs, read all the help files and manuals, and finally we found one program that does it all, that does it correct and that explains things correctly. Its name is RoboGEO. This program has so many possibilities and still is very simple with a very intuitive user interface.
Different projects
Once a project is saved, all Exif headers and photo captions are saved with it and we have many different possibilities to present our project to the outside world. We can export a Google Map web page or export to Google Earth, Flickr or MapPoint. We can export to a Shapefile, a DXF file or a GPX file.
Export to Google Earth can be as a KML file, a KMZ file, a KMZ file with images or as a KMZ file for the web. This last solution retains thumbnails of all photos, as well as the Exif info and the photo captions and a reference to a web server where the full sized pictures are stored. For our castle tours we use this option. For GPS castle tours this is an ideal solution, because our readers can admire large photos of the different castles, without the KMZ file being too huge.
Google Earth
If you never played with Google Earth before, now is probably the right moment to download the program. You can obtain it here for free. Click on the button that says "Download Google Earth" and not on the link in blue that says "Download Google Earth Pro".
Enjoy the GPS castle tours and the large photographs
Once Google Earth is installed on your computer (PC, MAC or Linux), you only have to click on the KMZ file for the castle tour of your choice. You will be asked whether you want to open it with Google Earth or save it to disk. Choose "Open". Google Earth will start automatically, place the file content in the "Temporary Places", and show with camera icons where the photos have been taken. When, after your visit, you close Google Earth, the program will ask you to save the items that are in the "Temporary Places". Now you can answer "Yes", and next time that you open the program, everything will be there. No need to download the KMZ file again.
Virtual tours with Google Earth
If you can not (yet) come to Belgium to drive the GPS castle tours yourself, you can do virtual tours with Google Earth. The Google Earth images for Belgium are of rather good quality, which means that you see all the details when you fly over our castle routes. On the Google Earth Settings page we will explain the simple details of how to obtain the best results.
Precious feedback from our readers
1) The "Google Earth settings" are based on the latest version of Google Earth. If you use an older version, some settings may not be available.
2) Sometimes left-clicking the KMZ file does not launch the Google Earth program. In this case it will be better to right-click the file and save it to disk. Pay attention to the file extension. This must be .kmz. Some Zip programs intervene and change this to .zip. Before saving the file change the extension to .kmz. If accidentally saved with the wrong extension, you can always rename the file.
Now start Google Earth and "File"-->"Open"-->file of your choice, and everything should function correctly.
For GPS enthusiasts
If you prefer to upload our track, waypoints, or both to your handheld GPS device, you can download them in GPX format from the respective castle tour pages. Click on the GPX file link to open it. Then you can do "File"->"Save as" to save it to your computer and later upload it to your GPS device.
Castle Tour Name Conventions
Our castle tours have double names. The first part of the name is the region. The second part is the start place.
Want to use your car navigation system?
If you prefer to visit only selected castles in every tour or do not want to try to follow the tours exactly as we have driven them, you can use your GPS car navigator to find the castles. In every tour description we have added (approximate) street addresses for the castles. If you prefer to do this, we recommend that, at least, you take a printed overview of the waypoints, as housenumbers are often not known and some streets or roads are rather long.
To the castle tours
All details of the different castle tours can be found on their respective pages. Let's start with the Haspengouw-Tongeren tour. As can be seen in the name, this tour is situated in the Haspengouw region and starts in Tongeren. And here you will find the Voeren-Visé tour, situated partly in the Voeren region and starting in Visé. The Hesbaye-Burdinne tour is situated in the Hesbaye region and starts in Burdinne.
For your information
The French word for castle is "Château" and the Dutch word is "Kasteel". As the small country of Belgium is divided in a the Northern Dutch speaking part and the Southern French speaking part, we encounter both words in the castle tours.
