Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WORTH A TRIP
MARBLE MOUNTAIN
Zipping down a dank wet unlit tunnel in a dusty white minibus, grubby headlights blazing, driver in-
congruously dolled up in a shiny shocking-pink bomber jacket, it is all somewhat surreal. Five
minutes into the pitch-black marble mountain, everyone is told to get out.
It is 16°C, foggy, damn dirty and slippery on foot and far from being a polished pearly white, it's
grey - cold wet miserable grey. Rough-cut blocks, several metres long and almost as wide, are strewn
about the place like toy bricks and marble columns prop up the 15m-high ceiling, above which a
second gallery, another 17m tall, stands. The place is bigger than several football pitches, yet amaz-
ingly there is still plenty of marble left for the five workers employed at Cava di Fantiscritti (
Click
here
)
, 5km north of Carrara, to extract - with the aid of water and mechanical diamond-cutting chains
that slice through the rock like butter - 10,000 tonnes of white marble a month. The current market
price is €200 to €1000 per tonne, with Carrara's very best commanding double that.
To learn how the Romans did it (with chisels and axes - oh my!), visit the surprisingly informative,
open-air
Cava Museo di Walter Danesi
(
www.cavamuseo.com
;
Cava di Fantiscritti; 11am-6pm)
, adjoining the souvenir shop across from the quarry entrance. Don't miss the B&W shots of
marble blocks being precariously slid down the
lizza
(mountain pathway) to the bottom of the moun-
tain where 18 pairs of oxen would pull the marble to Carrara port. In the 1850s tunnels were built for
trains to do the job (hence the tunnel tour groups use to drive into the mountain) - which they did until
the 1960s.
Sights & Activities
Museo del Marmo
(Viale XX Settembre; adult/reduced €4/2; 9am-12.30pm & 2.30-5pm Mon-Sat)
Opposite the tourist
office, Carrara's Marble Museum tells the full story of the marble quarries outside town,
from the old chisel-and-hammer days to the 21st-century's high-powered industrial quar-
rying. It also has a fascinating audiovisual oral history presentation documenting the lives
of quarry workers in the 20th century.
MUSEUM
Cava di Fantiscritti
Make your way up the mountain to this dusty, noisy, truck-busy
cava de marmo
(marble
quarry), through a dramatic series of tunnels bored through rock and used by trains to
transport marble until the 1960s (when trucks took over the weighty task). One of a hand-
ful of quarries, this is the easiest to visit.
Pick from a 40-minute
guided tour
( 339 7657470;
www.marmotour.it
; adult/child €9/4;
11am-6pm summer, 9am-4pm winter)
by minibus/on foot of the marble quarry inside the moun-
MARBLE QUARRY
