Marble Quarries

From “La Villetta Hotel” you can reach the suggestive Marble Quarries in just a 15-minute drive, through the highway. The real protagonists here are the Apuan Alps, which give the surrounding area an exceptionally particular character: their peaks have always fascinated naturalists, geographers, writers, painters and poets, think of the verses of the twentieth canto of Dante's Hell. "Strabone", after telling us about the port of Luni and the panorama that can be seen from the high mountains above it, begins his description like so: "Quarries of white and speckled blue stone which are so numerous and large ..". Unique in the world, in the heart of the Apuan Alps, these spectacular white marble quarries open like a lunar vision before the eyes of visitors: upon entering the heart of the mountain, you can touch the precious stone material preferred by artists such as Michelangelo and Canova. I recommend taking a guided tour of the fantastic basins of “Colonnata”, “Torano” and “Fantiscritti”. Downstream, in the numerous workshops, it is possible to see marble become alive in the hands of skilled artisans.