As mentioned in an earlier post, we were able to take a tour to the Carrara marble quarry. The tour was organized by Heather Evertsen of Europa Vita (contact information below).
The mountains in the area are all marble, and the guide on the tour told us the marble ran more than two miles below sea level. Perhaps you can see from the photos below a bit of the size of the mountain where our quarry was located. One photo is looking up toward part of the quarry and mountain and one photo is looking from up near the top of quarry down toward the sea beyond Pisa.
It was a foggy day, so the pictures are embellished with white cloud on white stone, but you can get a sense for how massive the marble formation is.
The lines on the face are cut marks. They cut massive blocks out of the cliff face, one row at a time.
In the photo on the left, you can see the saw and water supply used to make the first cuts on the stone (the fog lifted a bit and I got a slightly clearer photo). After the blocks are on the quarry floor, they are cut into smaller pieces that will fit on the trucks hauling them down the mountain.
Some well cut stones can be seen in the quarry yard at the bottom, but they also used marble stones to build up the strength of the road. Can you imagine marble roads?
At the point where we picked up the tour into the quarry, they had a couple of stores and a small museum. I resisted buying anything at the stores because my suitcases were full, but enjoyed the museum, including a board that shows the color of marble from around the world. (All the marble at Carrara is white.) I had to take three pictures to get all of the colors in!
Included at the museum were these marble tributes to quarry workers.
Magnificent place! Visit someday (see contact information below for Europa Vaita).
One last photo of my brother, Keith, and his daughter, Lisa, on the tour.
Contact Information:
Heather Eversten, Europa Vita: http://www.europavita.us/)
See the specialty tour at: http://www.europavita.us/classic-carrara/
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