The geocaching phenomenon continues to grow with more and more people arriving looking for the elusive geocache boxes hidden around the area.
Geocaching as a “tourism resource” is definitely making itself felt in this area.
There are now 20 cultural geocache boxes hidden in and around Barga and the Serchio valley which have already been been found and commented on by many people during the summer months.
As the season starts to draw to a close and the autumn gradually is creeping in it is time to check on the boxes to make sure that they are all prepared and ready for the coming wet weather.
As a kind of welcome to the valley there has been a cultural geocache hidden up at 1100 metres in the blocks of white marble at the far side of the Passo del Vestito, the tunnel through the mountain which joins Garfagnana to Versilia.
This week, the box was checked to make sure that it was still intact and water tight.
Inside where still many of the original artworks and of course the log book.
A nice message inside from a group of geocachers from Hamburg, Germany who like many of the people who have found the other geocaches further down in the valley, were impressed by the concept of a cultural geocache.
GEOCACHING is an outdoor recreational activity, in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, anywhere in the world.
A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. After signing into the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value.
The geocaches of Barga are somewhat different as they in fact do contain objects of value.
There will shortly be 20 geocaches hidden in and around the medieval walled city of Barga (LU) in Tuscany (the latest cultural geocache has just been installed in Coreglia Antelminelli)
The caches contain signed original artworks, drawings, charcoal drawings, prints and etchings by 40 artists working in this area.
There are also mini poems and short stories in Italian and Latin
Professional musicians have prepared a series of cards containing QR codes which when scanned by smart phones will play music specially written for the project. The music includes classic, jazz, piano, tango, rock and folk.
The project is an attempt to “raise the bar” on the level of objects which can be found and exchanged in geocaches.
We hope that the people who find these objects will enjoy them as much as we have in preparing them. (the map can be found here)
