Tuscany coast
After so many kilometers inland we have reached the coast. I described earlier how amazing it was to drive smaller curvy streets with the roof down, wind in the hair, sun in the face… You have a panoramatic view of the beautiful old buildings in the rich city of Genova, the harbour city, city of trade.
Through the countryside of Tuscany you get to Carrara, seaside resort for elderly italian people. A few motorbikers made me jealous of bot having my bike here. We decided to stay 1 day without traveling, enjoy the sea, relax, eat well, have a small walk etc.
My day started by a run a a workout on the beach with a swim afterwards. Then we had a breakfest (crazy sweet italian donuts) and a suncatching morning.
We went for a walk after noon to find a nice restaurant where they do not serve pizza over the lunch time. It was absolutely nothing to worry about, the menu was short but nice, we chose salads instead. To my sister’s surprise I had the sea food for dinner last night already.
After light lunch we felt into a shadow corner in the garden nearby. It turned out it was not that shady… Lucy (thanks to her unprofessional quick sunacream aplication got funny sunburned).
A local guy (Pino) brought us back from the dreamland. He was yelling at everyone, “Ciao Pino, Bambino, Ciao…”, Barking and making various sounds… The barking was very precise actualy. And you probably guessed right by now, he is a parrot.
We made our own italian dish in the camp, sat at the pier for some time and found our sleeping place around 10pm.
In the next morning I went again for a swim but today it had to be shorter – Florence is expecting us. We dared to make one more stop nevertheless.
Carrara is famous for its marble mining. Proofs of that you can find in the streets. The marble here is so available that they use like it was plastic! I.e. at floors at the bathrooms at camp.
We took Geetruda to the mountains to see the marble mine. Actualy ahe took us bet anyways… This mine is special in the way that it is an inside mine. There are 250 marble mines in Italy but only a few are not surface mines.
They took us 600m into a mountain to find a great marble hall (cathedral like). The high quality marble called “Straordinaro” coats 500-1000€/ton. The pure white marble without vains and imperfections costs 8000€/ton. Even Michelangello himself went to this exact place to pick his marble. We learned how the blocks are cutted, that they start from the bottom, than thay make a terrazza on the top, drill down and cat it with a diamond chain saw. Earlier 2 men were cutting 7cm whole day manually, nowadays they do the same in a minute. The blocks are usually 80-150ton (because of the lorry transportation, they dismounted the train tracks after the WWII, it was damaged and ineffective anyways). Great cold experience. A dew picture of Gertruda in the surface mine and let’s go. Panoramatic view were rewarding us for our choice until we reached the bottom of the mountain and went on a highway. In an hour we arrived to a beautiful historical ancient city…
