Story:
Hólar is beautifully located in the valley Hjaltadalur in the Skagafjörður district of the mid-northern part of Iceland. Hólar in Hjaltadalur is one of the Icelandic nation’s principal historical, cultural, and ecclesiastical sites. Hólar has been a place of learning through the ages, moving with the demands of each new era for education.
The name Hólar means hills. These are today covered with forest. Below the residential area are the meadows and fields of the horse breeding farm stretching to the river. (source)
Cache:
The aim of this cache is to take you on a short stroll around Hólar and its points of interest easily accessible for anyone (you might want to look for other caches in some of those places along your way). The starting coordinates points to the parking near local beer bar from where you can start following the steps of this multi cache (and come back for great beer to celebrate your success!).
1. Sögusetur Íslenska Hestsins - The Icelandic Horse History Centre - as horses plays important role in Hólar this is one of the places you have to visit. To get first number (A) required to work out the coordinates of hiding spot you need to find out the date (dd.mm.yyyy) of founding the museum on the banners above entrance and sum all the digits.
2. Nýibær - the next place the cache takes you is a new turf house which is open for tourists during summer months. Here you can find out next number (B) by counting the planks that the front door of the turf house are made out of.
3. Biskupagarður - Bishops' Garden - small garden by the college entrance where one of the first trees in Hólar were planted at the beginning of the 20th century. In the middle of the small park you can find stone memorial plate from which you can obtain third number (C) by adding up all the digits found on it. (in case of heavy snow covering the plate third number can be obtained from small gray plate on the side of the stairs next to the university entrance using same method.)
4. Hóladómkirkja - The Hólar Cathedral - The most remarkable location in town and the oldest stone church in whole country, important for both history and religion of Iceland. Above the entrance door you can find stone plate with year written in Roman numerals. Convert it to date in Arabic numerals and the next number (D) is made out of their sum.
5. Gvendarbrunnur - Gvendur's Spring - Memorial to the bishop known as Gvendur, many places in Iceland bears his name, among them this spring. To get the next number (E) you should stand behind the memorial pillar and take a look at Tower next to the Cathedral and count the windows you can see from this exact position.
6. Auðunastrofa - Auðun's House - Replica of the house built by Norwegian bishop in 13th century. The new house was made in year 2000 out of Norwegian wood and by using traditional 14th century methods and tools. The final number (F) is simple, just count how many stone stairs leads to the door at the back of building.
Obtaining cache is possible after collecting all the numbers from each location and using formulas below:
N 65° [J].[K]
W 019° [L] [M].[N] [O]
J = 11 * B
K = A * E - 3 * F
L = F * C - A - 10
M = A - E - F
N = D - 2 * E - 2
O = D + C - B
Each square bracket represents one digit or number, do not multiply them.
