Carrara Marble Quarries

Marble has been cut here since the Romans, who used it for the Pantheon and Trajan's Column, and the three basins above Carrara have never stopped producing. Michelangelo came in person to choose blocks and spent months in the mountains selecting stone, including for the David. The white cuts visible from the motorway and the sea are quarries, not snow. Until the nineteenth century blocks were lowered down the slopes by the lizzatura, sledges on soaped wooden rails held by ropes and teams of men, an operation that killed regularly. Working quarries are now toured by four-wheel drive and one underground chamber is open.

What to look for

• The working basins - three quarry valleys above the town, still cut daily.
• The underground quarry - a marble chamber toured inside the mountain.
• The Michelangelo connection - the slopes where he chose his blocks.
• The scale of the cuts - terraces and blocks that dwarf the machinery.

When to go

April to October; the quarry roads can be icy in winter and tours pause. Weekdays show work in progress; weekends are quieter but with less activity.

Good to know

Quarries are industrial sites with heavy traffic and dust, and independent driving up is discouraged. Tours are on rough tracks. It is cold underground year-round.

Nearby

The Apuan Alps rise behind; Colonnata's lardo cellars are close.