Sunday, June 24, 2007

Carrara






one of my favorite day trips in italy so far has been a trip to the carrara mountains. the first time we drove to the mountains it was an amazing site; it appeared there was new snow on the mountain, but since it was august and close to 100° i wondered how the snow could be there and be so brilliantly white. as we drove further and began our approach up the mountain we began to see the spectacular white "snow" was really marble. the carrara mountains are famous for producing the highest grade of white marble which has been prized for centuries by artisans such as michaelangelo, and all of the architects and builders throughout italy. even during roman times they would go to carrara to extract the marble to use on the coleseum, the vatican, leaning tower of pisa, the duomo in florence as well as many buildings in venice. it is a wonderful daytrip: you can drive right up to the sites where they extract the marble. you are able to watch them remove pieces of marble from the mountain the size of small trucks! if you drive further to the town of colonatta(the lard capital of italy) you are able to see how they transport these huge marble blocks from the tops of the mountains.

1 comment:

Dawn said...

These pictures brought back some great memories! Good Pics!