A Walk to the Past

English description

The educative aspect is central in this cache. It is not a good choice if you only want to visit interesting places.

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This multi-cache consists of four stages, all of which lie inside the city of Graz. It furthermore requires a preparatory phase to determine the coordinates of the first stage. The first three stages are intermediate stages, only at the fourth stage a cache container is to be found.

This cache bears some similarities with my cache Artistical Variations. It is again a cache where the main idea is to lead you to places in Graz which are not that well-known, but which I regard as interesting, both from the architectural point of view and from the historical point of view. The cache will probably challenge you more on the intellectual side than on the physical side.
NB: Besides leading you to places that are worth a visit in its own right, the educative aspect has played an important role in setting up the cache. For this reason, more questions are asked than would be have been necessary for leading from stage to stage.


Important information: (Please read this part before you start your hunt!)

• The starting coordinates given for this cache are fictive ones and are of no significance.
• This cache is not suited if you are eager for a quick and cheap find. It is also not well-suited for short-term visitors of Graz due to the time it takes.

• Since this cache requires quite some effort, I have set up a virtual cache, the A Walk to the Past - Virtual Bonus Cache. This virtual cache is closely connected to this cache and should serve both as a reward and as a source of motivation for doing this cache. The virtual cache can only be done after having successfully completed this cache. If you are interested into doing the virtual cache, do not forget to read the information sheet in the cache, and to write down the two numbers which are given there.
• Those cachers who complete this cache in one go (i.e., without returning home between the stages and without using mobile internet, telephone jokers etc) deserve special credit.

• The cache hunt will lead you to some buildings with restricted opening times. It is, however, not necessary to enter any of these buildings for the sake of the cache hunt. Visits of the buildings are strongly recommended, but separate visits not connected to geocaching activities seem to be more meaningful and appropriate.
• Some of the historical background associated with the places to which this cache will lead you is serious and sad. For that reason, I underwent a special effort to set up this cache in a manner which avoids any disrespectful treatment of the matter.

• Since the stages of this multi-cache are not always close to each other, but finding a suitable place to leave a car might be quite hard, it is very recommendable to do this cache by bicycle.
• It is recommendable to take a map of Graz with you. Good shoes might be an asset at the final stage.

• Note that upper and lower case variables, like a and A, have to be distinguished! Upper-case variables are only used temporarily and are not needed again at later stages.
• To help you not to get lost in some sort of chaos, I am providing two tables (see Table for the variables and Table for the coordinates of the stages).

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Stage 0: At a place of your choice

Stage 1 will lead you to a church (let us call it C for notational convenience) which is located in one of the inner districts of Graz (i.e., in the first six). Below some information on the church C is given, but not its name. You need to deal with the following questions and tasks.

Question 1: In the church C an interesting sacral work of art can be found which depicts two cruel dictators amidst a religious scenery. Find out which church is meant. (You will need to visit it at Stage 1.)

Question 2: Find out the name of the artist who created the work of art referred to above. Let us call him Mr U.

• A: The number which is obtained by applying the following procedure to the artist's first name: Replace each letter by the digit which is associated with this letter on the key-pad of portable phones.
• B: The number which is obtained from the last name of Mr U by proceeding in the same way as for his first name.
• a: The absolute value of the difference of the numbers A and B.
• b: The iterated cross-foot of the year in which the work of art has been finished. (I.e., sum up all digits of the year, and repeat this procedure with the obtained result iteratively until you end up with a result with a single digit. For example, the iterated cross-foot of 987654 is 3 with 39 and 12 being the results of the intermediate calculations.)
• c: The number of letters of the name of the city in which Mr U died. (Note: If you come across contradictory information, take the city which lies in the country of which Mr U was a citizen at the time of his death.)

Question 3: Mr U has been invited to become a member of a famous organization of German artists at quite a young age.

• d: The number of letters of the full name of this organization (two words).

Question 4: Find out the name of the artist who acted as president of the organization referred to above at the time when Mr U became its member. Let us call this artist Mr V.

• e: The number of letters of the first name of Mr V.

Question 5: The last name of Mr V is also the name of a city. There exist parts of the Bible in the names of which this city plays a role.

• f: The number of parts of the Bible which fit the above description. (Note that only those parts whose existence is known for sure and which are part of today's editions of the Bible are to be counted.)

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Stage 1: At Church C

Go to church C and find a plaque at the outside of the building.

Question 6:

• g: The earliest year mentioned on the plaque.

Question 7: The text on the plaque contains the names of artists who created works that can be found inside the church. Here we are interested into the one who lived the longest time ago. Let us call him Mr W. (Take your time for answering this question and do not act hastily.)

• h: The sum of digits of the number corresponding to the first letter of the first name of Mr W via the code A=1, B=2, ..., Z=26.
• H: The number of letters of the first name of Mr W.

Question 8:

• i: Number of horizontal bars of the cross at the top of the tower. (Do not take into account the different manners that exist to create such a cross, just the appearance the cross creates when viewed from far away.)

Question 9:

• j: The first digit after the comma of the decimal number which represents the minutes of the longitude of the location of Stage 1.

Some calculations:

• P = (b*c-30)*(d-e-h)
• Q = a-g+P
• R = e^3*f^3
• p = Q/R
• q = (b+d)
• D = (g-q/2+H-e)
• F=d*i
• r=D/F

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Stage 2: N 47° p', E 015° q.0r'.

You will find yourself close to a building which is an interesting mixture of old and new. Nearby you will find an information plaque providing some facts about a person who spent some years in Graz. Let us call him Mr Z.

Question 10: Determine the (d-b)-th word of the text on the plaque. This word arises in the title of several works of art. Here we are interested into the most famous among those. Who created it and in which city can it be found today?

• m: The number of letters in the artist's name (the commonly used name, not the full one) until the first A occurs (the A is not to be included into the counting).
• n: Find the name of the river flowing through the city you have just obtained above. Associate each of the letters arising in the river's name with the digit which corresponds to it on the key-map of a portable phone. Let n be the largest digit obtained in this manner.

Question 11: The plaque tells you the cities where Mr Z was born and died, respectively. You need to find out the countries in which these cities lie today (as of 2003). Determine the country codes which identify motorized vehicles from these countries (as of 2003 when the cache got hidden).

• s: Translate the country codes into numbers via the key-pad of a portable phone and subtract the smaller number from the larger one. Call the result s.

Question 12: The plaque tells you the cities in which Mr Z has studied until earning his Ph.D. degree. Among these cities, there is one where Olympic Summer Games have taken place.

• t: The cross-foot (=sum of digits) of the year in which the Olympic Games referred to above took place.

Question 13: Now walk around the building (if this is not possible, use Question 13b instead). Interesting, isn't it? At the outside of the building you can somewhere find two numbers separated by a slash.

• k: The number before the slash.
• l: The number after the slash.

Question 13b: (New workaround for Question 13, August 2023) Have a look at the entrance gate (only the part where one enter on foot) which keeps you from entering the area.

• l: Subtract one from the number of round steel bars on top of the frame of the gate.
• k: k=l*(n+1)

Question 14: Determine the bridge over the river Mur which is closest to Stage 2.

• o: Number which is associated with the first letter of the name of the bridge via the code (A=1, B=2, ...).

Some more calculations:

• u = s-t-k/l-n+o
• v = (d+s)/2

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Stage 3: N 47° 0e.cmu', E 015° v.nuj'.

You find yourself close to a crossing. Starting from here you need in any case to continue on foot. Take the path leading to the south-east and follow it until you arrive at a large building. Watch out for a plaque at the outside of the building. The plaque honors two men.


Question 15:

• w: The number of years one of the two men died later than the other one (Disregard the months in which they died - take into account only the years of their death.)
• x: The overall number of letters of the name of the place (two words) which has been founded (begründet in German) by one of the two men.

Some final calculations:

• y = (w+7)/(x^2)
• Z = k-6*l+j*o/2
• z = Z/(x^3)

Calculation of the coordinates of Stage 4:

The coordinates of Stage 4 are obtained from Stage 3 by the following procedure:

• Subtract y from the minutes of the latitude corresponding to Stage 3.
• Add z to the minutes of the longitude corresponding to Stage 3.
• The remaining parts of the coordinates are the same as for Stage 3.

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Stage 4: Coordinates as computed above.

Since September 2014 you can choose between the following two options to reach the final. The hideout got moved in August 2024 and the description below got updated accordingly.

Option 1: (Letterbox like clues, following the original idea of the cache dating back to 2003)
You will find yourself close to an object to which a sign with w+3 letters is attached. Follow the path which passes by the object downhill until you arrive at a crossing with another trail. At this crossing turn left and follow the path downhill. Soon a small path leads into a ditch to your right. Turn right into this partly overgrown path and follow it until you reach a mossy lying tree stump - be prepared to encounter more or less vegetation on the trail depending on the season. You will find the container at the tree stump. Please hide it well again.

Option 2 (the more boring one):
If you fail to find the cache with the above clues or absolutely want to use coordinates (be warned the reception is not very good), you can calculate coordinates for the final by the following offset from the coordinates of Stage 3:

• N: -[(w+7)*x + 3]/1000' (negative offset!)
• E: +[(w+5)*x - 7]/1000' (positive offset!)

The cache container is a small lock and lock container and contains no trading items. Good luck!

Please note the following:

• For approaching the hiding location you can stay on paths, except for the very last part for which good shoes are recommend (the T=2.5* rating applies to the final).
• You are asked to be very careful not to disclose the hiding place and to leave the hiding place as you found it. Special care is neeeded on sunny days when many walkers are around.
• When logging the cache, please avoid to add any form of spoilers to your log entry, regardless of whether encrypted or not. (It took me quite some effort to formulate the questions in a way that they are concise, but do not give away any information unintentionally.)