The marble beds

The centerpiece of the area Marmifera Carrara is the basin Miseglia, characterized by a fifty quarries, of which 40 are active in an area of 300 hectares. Tourists can access the basin through an asphalt road running from Bridge Vezzala and reaches up to the country of Miseglia, then continue along the slopes of Mount Cross up to Bridges to Vara, where lies the basin.

The Bridges of Vara were built in 1890 to allow transportation of marble from the rail. Continuing the climb toward the upper basin will pass next to a small quarry, the quarry school, where we ejectors trained prospective employees and marble. Later the road leads to the yard Vent Canal Grande, used for storage of marble blocks before being carried off downstream.

Yard winding all roads leading to other quarries above. Along a road asphalt is reached to the heart of the basin, and arrived at the beginning of a new ascent tourists can see on the right to a spectacular quarry pit. Continuing the ascent you reach a crossroads right to continue Canal Grande, but left it reaches the area Fantiscritti, also famous from an archaeological find here was a bas-relief carved on the walls of a quarry lunense depicting Jupiter, Hercules and Bacchus. The work is now kept within dell'Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara. Numerous archaeological discoveries have shown that this area was one of the most exploited by the Romans for the excavation of marble. Also in Fantiscritti is a quarry-museum, where tourists can admire the tools used for centuries in the excavation of marble.

The area of the Grand Canal, however, shows an interesting quarry of Carbonera: in 1928 from this quarry was extracted a block of marble perfectly intact and without any fault of enormous size, measured with 18 meters in length and 2.35 meters in width and height. Around 300 tonnes of perfection extracted from Marmifera rock. This huge monolith was then used for the construction of dell'obelisco Foro Mussolini in Rome.

The area east of the region Marmifera Carrara is the catchment area of Colonnata, which has 44 active quarries spread over an area of 500 hectares. Tourists have access to the basin through an asphalt road that goes back to the valley of the river Carrione to reach the village of Bedizzano. From here the road continues along the eastern side to reach the dock. Going towards Piana The location tourists can see on the right road to a deep quarry pit. Following a few hundred meters to reach calage, an interesting area archaeological interest before reaching Fossacava, the most complex of caves rich in archaeological finds.

Calage passed the road goes up to Colonnata, a country renowned worldwide for the production of the famous lardo di Colonnata.