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Must-find Caches in Europe?


d+n.s

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We are going to Europe next month. We plan on doing a lot of hiking and geocaching. I was curious if any of you would reccomend any "MUST FIND" caches in Europe?

 

Specifically the areas in and around:

London

Keswick

Edinborough

Oslo

Berlin

Potsdam

 

I'm not looking to spend a lot of my vacation messing around with micros in urban areas.

 

When I went to seattle there were some amazing caches.

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In traveling to London and Edinbrough, we found caches that followed the trail of Jack the Ripper through London's East End, took us to a 16th century pub, brought us to Arthur's Seat and more. But what do you consider to be a must find cache?

 

When traveling there are must see places for me, but must find caches are a different matter. It's nice when a cache is at a place that I want to visit. And it's nice when a cache points the way to something else.

 

There are guide books to London that took us to the weird side - the Bolan Tree and other places. There were caches that helped us discover places that interested me - from a Spanish civil war memorial to a Buddhist peace pagoda. And there were the usual kind of tourist adventures - caches by ruined castles around Edinborough, standing stones in the countryside, ruined abbeys, places where faeries have walked, the inner circle of Stonehenge.

 

I generally start by looking at virtuals and earthcaches. And then poke around for places that sound interesting. But my interests may have little in common with yours.

Edited by geodarts
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Thanls for the responses!

 

The jack the ripper one sounds rad. Observatory looks cool too! I basically am interested in either

 

A. unique caches and/or placements

B. caches that take me to a neat location

C. outdoorsy ones that highlight a nice view or something are obviously welcome. I wouldn't mind finding a cool cache in a castle for example...

 

On a more practicle note, is there anything I should know about taking my GPSr abroad? I'm assuming that (I have an old garmin 60CSx) I just need to make sure I have maps and I'm good...

Edited by d+n.s
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I've not yet done the Royal Observatory cache but the favourite points speak for themselves. In the same bracket is the Tin Pan Alley Band GC2C1NN. The one we've done in London that we really would recommend is one called 'Last Delivery' GCGBGB - an amazing location not just for where the cache is but what's very near it :D

 

And in terms of GPS maps for the UK - I'd recommend you check this thread out :D

Edited by Beach_hut
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Last Delivery in London certainly - because it's a really interesting place that it takes you to and isn't a micro. I've not done Tin Pan Alley but it's a bit different as I understand it. You might like it or hate it - you can probably figure out from the cache page which one it will be. It's a bit more out of the way.

 

You can put together a nice walk from the Tower of London across Tower Bridge, along the South Bank and across at the Tate Modern to St Pauls and then up to Smithfield (look for the virtual cacheA Meating place for Martyrs as a good end spot) that's well worth doing. There are caches along the route, including some virtual ones in interesting locations that tell fascinating stories as well as Last Delivery and some nice Earthcaches. But the walk is worth doing in itself as it takes in some great parts of London (eat lunch at Borough Market along the way). It's the walk I'd take anyone on in London who wanted to see some sites and not do *too* much walking. London's a good city to walk in.

 

There's also a set of Sherlock themed multi caches which are a bit different - you'll find some of them towards the end of that route.

 

You could then think about a river bus out to Greenwich if you wanted to explore that area or the same down to Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. The webcam cache at the Abbey Road crossing is also worth a look if you like that sort of thing.

 

In Edinburgh certainly do the Arthur's Seat earth cache - but do save it for a dry day! It's not that challenging a walk - my then seven year old did it in trainers. There's a GC10 cache in Edinburgh on the flanks of the castle that looks worthwhile as well - and some nice mystery/multi caches along the Royal Mile which will probably serve as a nice little walking tour of the historic part of the city.

 

You might find it better to ask in the respective regional forums as well btw. Especially if you want stuff not located in London or Edinburgh :-)

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To be a little more specific, we started our trip to Scotland last fall in Edinbrough. There is an easy to solve puzzle (by definition since I did it) near Craigmillar Castle, which is a city bus ride from the main part of town. It is a nice ruined castle that was on our to do list in any event. The cache gave us a good view of the castle after we visited Craigmillar itself and headed back to the bus.

 

There are several other ruined castles within a day trip of the city - some of the best we visited - and most have caches nearby. While visiting Melrose Abbey took a slight detour and stopped for a cache near the spot where Thomas the Rhymer met up with with an elf and disappeared for seven years.

 

We did the multistage virtual that took us to the Scottish Parliament Building. That was interesting and fun, very nice people, which by itself contrasted favorably with the capitol building in the US. There are others that take you down the Royal Mile. It was fun to do the virtuals and earthcaches around Arthur's Seat; the Wherigo takes you to a great location there as well.

 

There were of course several caches that were interesting for their location. We did a routine micro at the haunted Grayfriar's Kirk before walking down the street to Sandy Bells pub where fiddlers were playing Scottish music. There was a cache below Edinbrough castle, not too far from a webcam and earthcache. That type of thing.

 

There was a very intriguing earthcache near Edinbrough that can only be done at low tide, but the tides were not favorable before we headed to other areas.

Edited by geodarts
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On a more practicle note, is there anything I should know about taking my GPSr abroad? I'm assuming that (I have an old garmin 60CSx) I just need to make sure I have maps and I'm good...

 

It will work fine. I lost my 60csx in London during the quarter finals of the world's dart championship a few years ago, but it worked great until then. I must have had a premonition since I brought an even older explorist 500 as a backup unit - we were headed out of town for Stonehenge, Glastonbury, Avebury, and other areas in that part of England so I was glad to have it (even if it did try to take us on some very dubious routes). In those days, I used a PDA for cache descriptions, which was particularly useful for the virtuals and earthcaches.

 

During our last visit I supplemented the handheld with Geosphere, pocket earth, and Navigon on my iphone (only using wifi) and tablet - which made it easy to read cache descriptions and route our way once we left cities.

Edited by geodarts
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