European Tour with Signal the Frog®
- 10,467 miles
- Four countries
- 20 traditional caches
- Five earth caches
- One event cache
- Two virtual caches
Signal joined Deban and I on a trip to Europe that was a mixture of business and pleasure. We left October 3 for Prague, arriving on October 4. We spent a week there, visiting the Redmond family, attending the Eastern Europe and Balkan Summit, and exploring parts of Prague we’ve not seen on previous trips.
While in Prague I was able to earn my International Earth Cache Day 2017 souvenir by logging an earth cache. Another highlight of our time there was attending a geocaching event on Charles Bridge that was held by two geocachers from the Netherlands.
We also drove to the tri-country border of Czech Republic, Germany and Poland. Because I found geocaches in Germany and Poland, I earned two new country souvenirs to add to my collection.
On October 10 we flew to Rome, and spent three days touring the city. I found several geocaches there, earning my Italy souvenir. However, I missed out on the chance to earn add another country to my list by not taking time to look for a cache in Vatican City.
On our last night in Rome we enjoyed dinner at a pizzeria near our hotel. We ate at a table on the sidewalk, and had a delightful waiter. The next morning, as we were packing to leave I realized I had left my backpack on the ground under our table. Inside was Signal, all of the travel bugs I had traded for during the trip, and my Nikon camera.
I was panicked and very angry with myself. My sweet Deban told me she would buy me a new camera, but the travel bugs and Signal were irreplaceable. Before we began our tour, I went to the restaurant, but it was not yet open for the day. I tried to communicate with a construction worker there, but he did not speak English and only indicated that they opened at 11:00.
We boarded our tour bus which took us to the Roman Forum and The Coliseum. What we were seeing was incredible, but I couldn’t enjoy it because I was so upset about losing my backpack. I felt certain I would never see it or Signal again. Finally, after 10:00 I tried calling the restaurant. Our server from the night before answered and immediately let me know that he had my backpack! He had left me a note on the door and even tried calling some nearby hotels looking for me.
We cut short our tour of The Coliseum and jumped in a taxi. Our driver took us to the restaurant, waited for me as I retrieved Signal and then took us to another restaurant where we were able to rejoin our tour group, eat lunch and then ride the bus to the port.
We boarded the sailing yacht Wind Surf and cruised for a week along the Amalfi Coast. I was able to find two geocaches in each port that we visited. A couple of those caches required Signal and I to climb many, many steps. It was good that I was walking so much, because I was also eating everything in sight.
Our cruise ended in Barcelona, Spain. I once again missed the opportunity to add a new country to my list. Our flight was scheduled for only a few hours after our ship docked, so we had to rush to the airport. I had tagged a cache in the terminal we were flying from, and once we got checked in and through security, I tried to look for it. Unfortunately, it was outside of security so I had to abandon my search.
antbedy 