Geocaching through Tuscany

While Mark works on catching you up on all the adventures we've had in Israel, Greece, and now Italy, I figured I'd write a quick post on the joys of geocaching.  It's a great family activity that you can do almost anywhere - and, for us, it was a nice switch from all the museums and churches we've been seeing lately.

Some of you might have heard of geocaching (or letterboxing which is another similar activity).  Both are, essentially, worldwide, ongoing scavenger hunts.  All around the world, fellow geocaching enthusiasts have hidden little "caches" (usually in a small, plastic tupperware-type container) that typically include a logbook, a pen, and maybe some other items that have been left by fellow geocachers to be traded and to travel to other cache-boxes around the world.  The caches are hidden under trees, in walls, in caves, in cities, in parks, in forests - anywhere there's a small, hidden-away place where "muggles" (non-players) won't meddle or find the booty.  And they are everywhere.  You might have walked or driven by one today, in fact... There are about 20 in downtown Siena (and this town is not that big).  There are about 60 in downtown Florence and even 60 in our own downtown Philadelphia, PA!  (Go to geocaching.com, join for free and join the fun.) 

So, we took a day recently to venture into the Tuscan countryside, armed with our Rick Steves' "Hilltowns of Tuscany" book, and a list of geo-caches to find in various towns.  We don't actually have a hand-held GPS unit but we seem to do okay without it most of the time.  You can get really close to pin-pointing a cache's location online before you leave the house (you can enter the GPS coordinates into a website that converts them into a location on a Google-type map and drill in pretty closely).  If the cache is in a city or town, it's pretty easy to get within 50 to 100 feet or so and narrow down your search.  Even in the woods, it's a little harder, but sometimes doable.

This was a great activity that allowed us to see these quaint, old towns that are just dripping with character, and enjoy a treasure-hunt that actually led us to some parts of the towns we wouldn't have normally sought out.  Even though we found a few the other day, we have a lot more caches to find..wish us luck!

Here's the outer gate of Monteriggioni, an old hilltop town that was actually mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy.  Its 14 commanding towers provided Siena with its northernmost defense against an ever-impending invasion from Florence in the 13th century. (Siena and Florence have a continuing 800+ year old rivalry...although there's no longer a threat of invasion!) 

Here's the central square of tiny Monteriggioni...its well and church.  The town was very quiet...not a soul around.

A cute alley/street inside the Monteriggioni city walls.

These cool, angled stones mark the entry through the other gate of Monteriggioni into town (this is facing out of the gate)

Here, the kids are updating the log book in a geocache we found near Monteriggioni's city walls.

San Gimignano is THE quintessential Tuscan, medieval, hilltop town.  It is quaint, filled with narrow stone streets, colorful, touristy shops, and tall stone towers and beautiful views of the Tuscan countryside all around.  Here, Ari stands in the doorway of a bakery/pasta store with a pair of matching (stuffed) wild boar to commemorate his adventurous lunch of wild boar meat...which was surprisingly tasty (didn't taste at all like chicken).

The old well in the center of San Gimignano's town square has hundreds of distinct marks inside its upper "lip" where you can picture hundreds of years of young maidens dragging up their buckets day after day to bring home the water.  The Thursday morning market happens in this square each week - as it has every week for over 1000 years...

14 of San Gimignano's original 70+ towers remain, giving it a unique and beautiful skyline. 

Here's the view from one of San Gimignano's many church towers.

Here, the kids are updating another logbook after finding another geo-cache.  Later, we go home and update the website to let the "owner" of the cache know that their treasure is still in its place.

One of the many quaint alleyways of San Gimignano

San Gimignano's main street at night - kind of magical