Carrara (Italy)

Carrara, the world-wide capital city of marble fabrication and trade, takes its name (from the Ligurian root-word kar = stone) just from the material which made it famous the world over. The historical city centre preserves some valuable monuments. The Cathedral (XI-XIV centuries) with a Romanesque-Gothic fade and a precious marble rosette; inside: a wooden Crucifix (XIV century); two finely-made statues, the "Cassanelle", the Virgin and the Annunciation ...
...the ancient main altar. In the Cathedral Square are: a marble bell tower, the "Giant"'s fountain and the house where Michelangelo stayed. Other interesting monuments include: the building of the Academy of Fine Arts, consisting in the old castle and the Renaissance Prince's Palace; Repetti House (XIII century); the charming Piazza Alberica, considered as one of the most beautiful seventeenth-century squares; the Santuario delle Grazie {XVII century), ...

giannit 02.10.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)

Carrara, the world-wide capital city of marble fabrication and trade, takes its name (from the Ligurian root-word kar = stone) just from the material which made it famous the world over. The historical city centre preserves some valuable monuments. The Cathedral (XI-XIV centuries) with a Romanesque-Gothic faade and a precious marble rosette; inside: a wooden Crucifix (XIV century); two finely-made statues, the "Cassanelle", the Virgin and ...
...statues in the ancient main altar. In the Cathedral Square are: a marble bell tower, the "Giant"'s fountain and the house where Michelangelo stayed. Other interesting monuments include: the building of the Academy of Fine Arts, consisting in the old castle and the Renaissance Prince's Palace; Repetti House (XIII century); the charming Piazza Alberica, considered as one of the most beautiful seventeenth-century squares; the Santuario delle Grazie ...

giannit 16.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)

...cold northern winds, Marina di Carrara is a modern, well-equipped seaside resort, with a large beach of fine and soft sand, set among the blue sea and green pine woods. Excellently located along the Tyrrhenian coast, it is very well served by road (Trunk Road no. 1, "Via Aurelia"), motorway (A 12: Genoa-Livorno; A 15: Parma-mare; A 11: Florence-mare) and railway (lines Genoa-Pisa-Rome and Milan-Fornovo-Livorno) connection networks, so its beach ...
...to the main monumental and artistic centres of Tuscany as well. The advantages of a temperate climate in any season, of sand, sun and breezes mitigating the sultry weather and the oppressive heat of the summer add to the unique privilege of ranging, within a few miles, from bathing in the sea to sun-bathing in the mountains at an altitude of over 1,000 metres, and to many other excursions in the inner territory, rich in history, art and unusual natural ...

giannit 16.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)

The first approach to the marble slopes takes you generally to Colonnata (532 metres high), an ancient hamlet said to have been founded to accomodate the slave who excavated the marble in Roman times. The quarries of Colonnata comprise the most important of the Apuan slopes and offer a supeerb view of the majestic marble pieces on the slopes of the Mountains Serrone Maggiore an Spallone. At the summit of the same mountain you find the slope of Gioia: ...
...The Fantiscritti quarries are reached by following the River Carrione to the Vara bridges. For 100 years, these have permitted trains to carry marble, today converted into a road which crosses the Vara Tunnel. Known as a Fantiscritti because it is from here that the famous Roman bas-relief came. The marble extracted from this basin is the clear White type of Battaglino and of the Grand Canal, the Bettogli Statuary and the ordinary White of Fantiscritti. ...

giannit 16.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)

Not far from Carrara are the Apuan Alps. Since the ancient Romans times, people have been digging out marble from these mountains. If you are in Carrara, go to the "Museo del Marmo", to learn more about marble. To extract marble, requires a lot of science, since, according to the way it is cut out of the mountain, the quality can be affected positively or negatively. Once cut, the rock is cleaned, and then transported, with an ancient technique, ...
...are on the coast, you can see the mountains with their gleaming white, as if it were snow. Some of the travel agencies in Carrar organize trips to the caves directly. If you are in town on Monday, make sure you pay a visit to the local market. Many farmers are these days selling to the public their products. the 19th March is the anniversary of the Saint of the City, and parties are held in the street. ...

CICLISTALOCO 19.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)

...eye of the beholder. Massa, Carrara and Montignoso on one side and Lunigiana on the other can boast a rather unique geological location connected by world-famus arts town in Tuscany. A 10-minute drive to Versilia, a half an hour drive to Le Cinque Terre, a little longer to Pisa and Lucca and an hour's drive to Florence. Finally, further opportunities to enjoy the territory are offered by the Conference Centre in Marina di Massa and the Marble and ...

giannit 03.11.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)

Below is an article I had prepared some time ago. It is a town to be discovered slowly, wandering the silence of its streets amidst the severe beauty of palazzi whose stones disclose a timeless history. It is shrouded in a unique atmosphere, an indefinable charm, due possibly to the marble which is everywhere. The visitor is pervaded by an infinite candour at the sight of its beauties, foremost among them the Duomo (eleventh-fourteenth century) ...
...in white and dark inlaid marble. The three-naved interior houses works of indubitable artistic value: the fifteenth-century marble statues of the Cassanelle, a fourteenth-century wooden crucifix, the sixteenth-century pulpit and the Bergamini chair-backs. In Piazza del Duomo we can admire the imposing 33-metre belltower built in the thirteenth century and the Fontana del Gigante, an incomplete sixteenth-century work by Baccio Bandinelli. ...

FRADUC 19.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)

...foot of the Apuan Alps, Carrara is word-wide famous for its white marble quarries which surround the town. To admire this precious material walk around the town and you will see how it has been used to decorate the squares, the buildings, and the cornices of facades. There isn't a place where you cannot but appreciate man's ability to work this stone. Of the main squares, Piazza Alberica is the most noteworthy: flanked on one side by Palazzo Del ...
...In the centre there is the statue of the Duchess, Maria Beatrice d'Este erected in 1827. One of the most important palaces is the Fine Art Academy (Accademia di Belle Arti). But the town's crowning glory is the Cathedral, built over a period of 300 years. Started in the 11th century, it is a fine example of a variety of styles, ranging from the Romanesque to the Gothic and the dichromate facade is unmistakably Pisa style. The rose-window above the ...

giannit 08.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Carrara (Italy)