Carrara Marble Day Trip

Thursday October 6th, 2011- Carrara, Italy

Today we went on a day trip to Carrara, Italy where they are famous for their white marble. We had a bus today which was a reallllly nice change of pace from the trains and walking everywhere. It took us about an hour and a half to get to Carrara on the bus, and the bus took us to all of our stops of the day. We started off going to a museum which showed the history of the marble quarry and how they get the marble out and down the mountain. They had all different kinds of marble to look at, but mostly white marble which is the marble of this specific marble. Then we went into historical Carrara to have lunch and to visit the main church in the town. This town seemed like a small version of Genoa, except for the fact that everything was made from marble... even the ground. I guess you can afford that much marble when the mountain behind your city is packed full of it. After lunch we went up into the mountains where the quarries are. I had no idea that there were these massive mountains so close to Genoa. We went on a tour into the quarry which was in the middle of the mountain.. apparently 600 meters in the mountain on either side and 400meters down from the peak. It was cold in there, but it was cool to see how they cut the marble out and to be in a quarry that is still in use(there were workers there at the same time). Our guide said that all of the mountains in the mountain range(alps) were made of marble... this region having white marble. After the tour, we headed back to the bus where the bus driver was very disgruntled about the marble dust all over us.

After the quarry tour we quickly stopped at a marble studio where artists make marble statues for places all over Europe.. they had versions of David lying on the floor among many other statues. Apparently the "sculptor" of the statue does not actually do the work or witness all of the work. He is more or a less a boss, checking up on the work of the apprentices. We only stopped here for about 20 minutes before hopping on the bus and heading back to Genoa.

Only one test tomorrow morning before I head to Istanbul and Greece for the next week!