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Today, we made a day trip up to the marble country. We started out visiting a sculpture studio. We then went to the village of Pietrasanta, where we toured a museum's plaster model collection. Plaster models are used by marble sculptors as practice and reference for their final sculptures. After lunch, we toured nearby sculpture yards, where anything marble is made, from statues to columns. Though we did not see it, Pietrasanta is home to Michelangelo's own quarry, where some of the purest white marble is said to come from.
We then headed up to the town of Carrara, which owns the mountains where Carrara marble is quarried from. We headed up into the mountains to tour the area's only (or one of the only) underground quarry. Deep inside the mountains, the quarry is actually underneath an open-air quarry hundreds of feet above. After the terrifying ride back down the mountain (our bus driver's cell phone was attached to his ear, and he drove with one hand while talking the whole time, driving through switchbacks), we headed back to Vernazza for the night.
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