My high school bestie Bernie and I spoke for 2 hours this morning while Eric was sleeping. Her night my day, me thinking it was Thursday, in reality Friday. It felt like being home in Australia, after this I did something else I do back home, a huge pile of laundry. This time however there was a bit of excitement involved as it was my first italian laundra visit. I'd packed my dirty vestiti in my purple back pack and was instructed by the owner to put my token in the washing machine, press play and go for a coffee. Eric and I were delighted that once again breakfast was amazingly affordable . Scusa, vorrei due cappuccini e questa cornetto, una Nutella e una cioccolate, e questa panino, per favore! Bit by bit I was able to make myself understood, I still don't know how to say 'and' so I've inserted 'e'! €7.70 for the lot!
On the way back to the laundry we stopped at the green grocer and bought some of the huge as beans previously viewed and eaten at the Cinque Terre, some baby potatoes and other healthy items, we also stopped by the fish monger to buy some pesce for Good Friday, and then at the Bakery to purchase the obvious and some milk. After collecting our now dry washing we briskly walked back to our airbnb to get ready for our outing. In their booklet they offer a tour to the Carrara mine for €30, I assumed it would be a 2 hour drive by,however day turned into night and and we had a splendid 8 hours with these extremely lovely people.
The Carrara mine is in the Apuan Alps and extends for 160km they are the mines from where all the the famous renaissance sculptors obtained their marble, as well as the marble used in each of the fabulously opulent palazzo and churches we have visited. There is also evidence of processing marks dated around the Etruscan and Roman Age.
We had driven up and had stopped to try and buy some lardo, the name suggests the primary ingredient, pig fat. The lardo is cured with hillside oregano in a marble vat for 6 months then eaten by devotees of all this porcine on either panini or a crisp slice of pane di casa so we'd driven as far as we could and were on the descent when we were hollered at by a man at the mine boom gate. He offered to take us up into the heart of the mine for €10 per person, of course we agreed, who could say no to such a once in a life time opportunity? Certainly not moi the bargain huntress!
Into his four wheel drive we clambered and off we drove up the loose marble rubble track, the wheels slipped but we carried on until we reached the first plateau. We stood on a huge cold marble platform and Luciano showed us the way he grades the marble by tapping on it with a hand sized marble prism, depending on the tone, he classifies the white marble which is calcium carbonate into A or B grade, both are destined for Dubai as they will pay the most for it - 80% goes to Dubai and the rest of the marble bench top loving world fights over the remaining percentage. Grey marble gets sent to Russia I forgot what mineral creates that colour, but I do remember iron ore gives the brown pink colour.
We walked along the marble wall holding onto a flexible wire, we were at least 12m above the ground and the path was maximum 45cm. Although I am a total scaredy cat due to being Asian and molly coddled I whispered internally "suck it up sister" and pushed my chest out and soldiered on. Luciano pointed out the Tyyranean sea, The Cinque Terre and Tuscany in general, he showed us his 'restaurant ' and the mountain that would be gone in 12 months time. After 10 minutes of walking uphill we reached the top of the mine where the computer that contoured the mountain was set up. Eric was most interested in all things dynamite and mechanical and thank goodness he understood the rapid fire commentary. When needed he was able to ask questions he enjoyed it almost as much as The Cinque Terre, so manly! Luciano drove us back to the car after 2 hours then proceeded to do sales pitch on stuff from the back of his vehicle . Apparently when the lira was replaced with the euro the wages went down and although he is in charge of a billion dollar mountain he has to supplement his income with shady tours and car boot sales!
Maurizio drove on clearly with a destination in mind, we stopped at Pietrasanta which is apparently an enclave for artists and as he is a digital artist he frequents this city a lot. There was a fabulous contemporary sculpture exhibition in the piazza by Giuseppe Carta the gigantic chilies reminded me of a painting that my artist daughter Ru, who us currently studying in New York state gave me years ago - both my younger two children are very artistic, a gene they inherited from their paternal grandmother. We ordered a drink each at a bar, I wanted to fit in and ordered a birra piccola - what the hell, I don't even drink beer and our hosts both had a juice and Eric ordered a coffee, epic fail at coolness!
A reservation at a pizzeria at Pietrasanta Marina had been made for 8am so that we could watch the sunset, I couldn't believe our luck another vantage point! We ealked to the beginning of the pier and clicked away, I tried to capture a paraglider going down to land. Our hosts told us that a beach quadrant costs $10 000 - $30 000 per season to hire and that most of the beach is privately owned by resorts or wealthy people.
It was time for our pizza double date so we hopped into the car to drive to the pizzaria. It was one of the places that does the metre long. There was a real difference between them and the cugini. They ordered half a metre for the four of us and the cugini ordered 1.5 metres for four of us ! All of us were zapped of energy and although they offered to stop in Viareggio for a coffee we were so tired after an 8 hour trip that we declined. Ahhhh the perils of old age!
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