So How Does One Become A Bronze Earthcacher? Well 1st You Need A Truly Mad Friend...Eh McBee?

If truth be told it's because of McBee that I became a Bronze Earthcacher. Y'see Linz is one of those people that you give the grain of an idea to

 'wouldn't it be good to get the Bronze Earthcache this year...hey hey a wee day trip to France would do it!'

 and she grows it to a bleeding great beanstalk of a plan with flights, Paris tube map app for the iphone and an Earthcache smack bang in the middle of Paris. Catherine aka Kattie900 was dually brought on board under the guise of a shopping trip with wine (you'd think she would have learned by now!) and before we knew it we were booked up; Wednesday 28th July, Glasgow - Paris Charles de Gaulle (Easijet) on the way there, Paris Beauvais - Prestwick on the way home (Ryanair). Mr.Biffo had a very important role ...... getting us to the airport in the morning before work, no Paris caching for him. POOR MR.BIFFO.

Les crapauds de l'obélisque de la concorde.
by bob29 | GC1MN5Y | Île-de-France, France 


The Earthcache was our priority so we headed there first, guided by Lindsay's ever faithful iphone app which directed us to the exact metro station. The one thing I hadn't banked on was the weather it was gloriously hot and sunny and I was ill prepared in jeans (it's hard to break out of Scottish mentality sometimes). We walked through the beautiful park 'Jardin du Tuileries' and the brightness of the day was truly dazzling. Now this was my first time in Paris and I dearly hope it won't be my last, one thing that struck me straight away was just how BIG everything is; the park, the buildings, the roads, the roundabouts!!! Big, golden and linear; rows upon rows of trees, columns, bridges. Interesting how each city brings it's own unique qualities. Anyway I'm rambling.......

The lovely Kattie900 with Crap Obelisk


Back to the crap obelisk, because that's what my mind tells me to call it. We found it simply enough, oh yes because it's massive! Getting to it was a bigger challenge, Catherine is a tall, brave woman and if my memory serves me well I hung onto her while trying to avoid being road kill on the Parisian streets, Rue Royale to be precise.  

Just check out that traffic! Those are rows upon rows of angry French drivers and stupid tourists.

Armed with notepad and camera we photographed and documented all the necessary information required to claim the Earthcache, this we checked and double checked as we weren't coming back if we got it wrong! The toads were the hardest thing to decide on; toads are the impurities in the Granite. There! Proof that Earthcaches achieve the purpose, which is of course to educate us on Earth Science. I have to say I am a becoming a bit of a geology anorak and would be a valuable member of any really nerdy pub quiz.

Kattie 900 with some toads, glad they're not called frogs, how offensive would that sound?!

Our caching adventures from this point on were less than successful with a good few DNFs. Oh Mr.Biff would be so ashamed of us. However we were just really pleased to have got the Earthcache and soak up the ambience of Paris. Further up the Seine we find the Virtual cache

  Liberty's Flame    GC63DB

As it turns out 'Liberty's Flame' was placed here in 1987 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the International Herald Tribune, ten years later it became the famous landmark of the car crash of Diana 

Princess 

of Wales 

and now appears to be more of a memorial to the late Diana 

who tragically.....well we all know the rest. 

Catherine was really taken with this giant golden cream cone (didn't I say lots of Golden things in Paris). People have graffitied on every available cm of concrete with RIP comments, flowers are laid around the base of the flame and people clearly come here as a bit of a pilgrimage, I should add NOT McBee who rolled her eyes lots at Catherine who expressed her heart felt thoughts of the lovely Diana.

Kattie900 & Mrs.Biffo at the Big Cone, note the nasty tunnel behind.

A little further on we found our 3rd cache of the day, a little magnetic micro.

La passerelle avec une vue superbe
by pacuso | GC1EW9V | Île-de-France, France

The 'vue superbe'? The Eiffel Tower of course. Nice to be writing our name on a logbook this time. Our 4th and final cache was a box, not many of those in the centre of Paris. We'd came armed with some TBs and really wanted to stretch their legs, no point in taking them home. The heat was wearing us down a little but onwards and upwards through Palais de Challiot seeking....

 cimetiere de passy (paris)

GC18DNC

Created by: pacuso

Difficulty: 

Terrain: 

Date Hidden: 1/6/2008

Cache Size: 

This is a VERY special cache indeed, or perhaps better to say a very special place and a decidedly odd place for a cache as it is indeed in a cemetery. A cemetery that I have never before seen the like with lots of family shrines and mausoleums. It really was very special. We found the cache and did the logbooking & TB drop business but I have to say McBee and I felt that it wasn't an appropriate place for a cache, although the fact remains that unless we had been taken to this place by geocaching we would never have found this hidden gem. Perhaps a morbid place to visit on a sun, shattering day in July in Paris, most people would be more inclined to visit the Eiffel tower. But hell we are all Aquarians and a little bit bonkers. I'm sure the others will agree that it was a perfect place to visit.

Cimetiere de Passy, a very special place of rest

Ok can we go shopping now?

Caching was deemed over for the day, time for a glass of wine and a bite to eat before running through the streets of Paris to catch the bus to Beauvais. It was a really magic day out, we had started at about 7am and got home about midnight. Mr.Biff decreed we were a shocking disgrace for only finding 4 caches, but his nose was out of joint for having not been there.

We sprinted passed the Champ- Elysees as we were late for the bus!

I will most definitely return to Paris, it really was a beautiful city. 

Cheers!

Make mine grande!

So we bagged our Bronze on this trip and I was, earlier this year, to pop Silver in the bag. Gold will be the Biffo's next achievement on the Earthcaching stats. McBee has already made noises about Iceland, overflowing with Earthcaches apparently...oh really McBee?