{"id":957,"date":"2018-05-06T03:02:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T09:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/?p=957"},"modified":"2018-05-06T03:31:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-06T09:31:50","slug":"our-visit-to-the-carrara-marble-mines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/our-visit-to-the-carrara-marble-mines\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Visit to the Carrara Marble Mines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We took a tour through the Carrara Marble Mines.\u00a0 If you’re a James Bond fan, you’ve likely had already seen them.\u00a0 The opening scene of Quantum of Solace was filmed here.\u00a0 We drove the same roads as James Bond and even visited the house the car crashes into before going over the cliff.\u00a0 Can you spot the similarities in our photos below?<\/p>\n

When you see the white peaks of the mountains in this post, its all marble, not snow!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrera has been mined for its marble since Roman times.\u00a0 \u00a0 As our guide said, “It’s not money-making\u00a0or a product, marble is our culture.” Everywhere you look in the town, you will see its marble. The use of it was never meant for show, it was simply a sturdy building material that was local and abundantly available.<\/p>\n

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We were greeted at the Carrara-Avenza\u00a0trail station by our guide Gabrielle.\u00a0 He picked us up, along with 2 other Americans, in a Land Rover Defender.\u00a0 It arrived with white marble-covered tires entirely cloaked in a pale, light dusting of the stuff.\u00a0 After buckling up in the Rover, Ryanne spotted a sticker on the windshield which read, “It’s not a jeep, it’s a f**king Land Rover.”\u00a0 The tour we signed up for mentioned it would be taking us deep into the quarries and by all indications, we knew they weren’t kidding.<\/p>\n

Everything you see in the Carrara mountains is marble.\u00a0 There is no granite, no sandstone, no limestone; just marble.\u00a0 The marble gets colored from impurities and oxidation just like any other mineral, but everywhere you look, marble. All the vegetation you see; growing in the cracks of the marble. No soil whatsoever.\u00a0 All the minerals for the plants come from the marble as does the water which pools in cracks of the stone.<\/p>\n

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\"\"As we slowly inch our way up the steep roads of the quarry, you see massive blocks of marble.\u00a0 Many the size of an American SUV and some even bigger.\u00a0 The marble is mined from the outside in on the mountain.\u00a0 Why dig for the marble when it’s everywhere, including the surface?\u00a0 The marble is mined by cutting it into large blocks and then shipping the blocks.\u00a0 A typical block is cut from the mountain-side by first drilling 3 holes into the earth: one vertical and two horizontal which all intersect.\u00a0 Now, a special kind of saw is brought in to begin\u00a0cutting away the block from the mountain.\u00a0 The “saw” is really a rope which is threaded between 2 of the holes.\u00a0 The “saw” cuts the block by cycling the rope through these holes with the friction of the rope cutting into the earth.\u00a0 After 3 cuts are made, the block is free.<\/p>\n

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The rope I mentioned is no ordinary rope, but one made from a steel cable with bits of diamond on the outside giving it sharp teeth to cut.\u00a0 As the saw cuts into the earth, it is pulled back from the mountain on rails as to keep the rope tight against the earth to make the cut.<\/p>\n

Driving in the Marble quarry is serious business.\u00a0 The roads are steep and windy like hairpins. At one point, our guide had to drive up the mountain backward for traction to get us to the next destination.\u00a0 Definitely not a tour for those afraid of heights.\u00a0 Ryanne took a great video while we were climbing one of the roads in the Land Rover to show the effect. On the drive back down the mountain, no one was saying a word. The driver asked, quite cheeky, why we were so quiet. We told him we wanted to make sure he would have no distractions and be fully focused!<\/p>\n