By Bill Van Couwenberghe (AlaskaVans)
We went with our church (St. Benedict’s) on a pilgrimage to Europe. There were 35 of us on the trip. We traveled to Belgium, Germany, Austria and Czechia. Along the way, during our free time, we were able to do some Geocaching. Since we were on a group tour, we could only find caches that were within walking distance of where we were at. Below are some of the highlights of the caching portion of the trip.
The two best finds were when we were in Brugge, Belgium. The first one was GC4XMCM RV 5.08 : Brugge. It had over 7,200 favorite points when we found it. Two weeks later, it has over 7,300 favorite points. It was featured as a cache of the week back in February 2019 (RV 5.08 : Brugge — Geocache of the Week – Official Blog). After finding it, I now know why. The second one was GC7B940 ♥ Pont d’Amour ♥ (point of love). They note in the cache page that “If you kiss your beloved one on this bridge, you’ll stay together forever!” My eldest daughter received a marriage proposal on the bridge. She said yes!
In Cologne (Köln), Germany, we did a virtual that was created by Moun10Bike, GC5B4A Portal to the Past (Köln). Moun10Bike is a lackey that has classic geocoins (see the Treasures – Classic trackables). So finding one if his caches was great.
While we were in Munich, Germany, in one of the squares, there was a webcam: GCHNBF The heart of munich. We were gathering to take a group picture. I happened to look to see what was nearby and saw the webcam. It made it easy for me to identify where I was in the picture of the square.
While in Mariazell, Austria, I finally was able to locate a 25 to use for the Where’s 25? Locationless Cache (GCA2025). I was doing some souvenir shopping in the town near a Benedictine Abbey and saw the sign. I remembered that I hadn’t done this cache yet. So I snapped a couple of pictures and logged the find.
In Prague, Czechia, there were two caches next to each other that were fun to do: a traditional cache that was in a visitor center, GC7V42P PRAGUE TOURIST TOUR: Staromestske namesti, and a virtual cache, GC89130 Pražský orloj / Prague Astronomical Clock – VR2.0!. The traditional cache has over 4,150 favorite points. The virtual was an Astronomical clock that we were able to watch it at the top of an hour.
