Around The World Without Flying: From La Spezia to Carrara to Rome with my second Italy tour group

This post is completely out of order, but today’s trip back to Rome from La Spezia has been so eventful I am going to talk about that rather than Verona. Verona will be my next post instead.

I only arrived at my hotel in Rome at 8.30 pm, so we were on the road for 12 hours. A long, long day!

Our first stop was at Carrara, the township where Italy’s beautiful white marble is mined and from where it is shipped all over the world. (There is a port nearby.) This mine is where Michelangelo selected and cut out his block of pure white marble to sculpt his David. Just to cut it out must have been a massive task, when all he had was hand tools. Now, of course, the marble is cut by machine and, apparently, identical statues can be made in far less time using robotic equipment, with just some hand polishing by artists required at the end of the process. But an artist has to create the original model.

We drove half-way up the mountain to see the mine at first hand. It was incredible - so vast, with huge trucks leaving the site at least once every five minutes with a load of blocks of marble. But the drive up the curved narrow road with a huge drop below was rather hairy. Even hairier was the fact that steam was pouring out of the motor of our small coach by the time we got up there. We had to stay up there for quite some time so that the motor could cool down and we could get back down the mountain. That was the start of our troubles for the day, but at least there was a little shop up there where we could get a coffee and use the toilet whilst we waited.

Next we visited a winery in Tuscany where we had a really delicious lunch, which included home-made fettuccine with a really tasty bolognese sauce, and samples of their wines, olive oil, olives, etc. This winery was located on a farm with 50 acres of vineyards and olive groves near the village where the author of Pinocchio was born. There was a large, brightly painted wooden statue of Pinocchio with his long, long nose on a roundabout just before we reached the winery. Our guide told us that there is a Pinocchio Park for children in that village. Unfortunately our bus ‘flew’ past the statue as we were running late, so I was unable to photograph it.

Then it was the long drive to Rome. After a couple of hours we stopped at one of the very large roadside cafes/petrol stations for a coffee and toilet break. This has been a feature of most of the days I have been touring in Italy. Generally you find at least 10 huge trucks and several tourist coaches there at the same time, so they are very busy.

But when we pulled up at this facility, amber warning lights and messages showed on the driver’s display panel, so we again found our very capable young driver looking into the motor and ringing the company for advice - he is not a mechanic. We still had over two hours driving to do, so this was very worrying. We drove on, but by the time we reached the outskirts of Rome, after being held up by an accident where the police had blocked off most lanes, it was flashing red warning signs. Our tour guide hoped we could nurse the coach along anyway, but then the next trouble started. By this time it was 7 pm and the city was in gridlock, with police everywhere. So it was move just a metre or two, with cars and motor scooters just cutting off the coach - stop - start . . . with the red light still flashing. We passengers were getting very worried that the bus would catch on fire. But the tour guide for this tour insisted we kept on and on, trying to bypass the worst of the gridlock. Eventually stopped at a bus stop and flagged down taxis to take us to our hotels. As we waited for our luggage, there was a really strong smell of ammonia coming from the coach.

The taxi driver told me that the gridlock was due to the closure of many main roads for a G8 summit. I gather it is even worse when a US President arrives! Never have I been more glad to eventually get into my hotel room. I am too tired to go out and get some dinner, but I was delighted to find my first hotel in Italy with a kettle and tea and coffee, and even a couple of fruit gels to greet me!

The winery we visited in Lucca in Tuscany.

Our delicious pasta.

One of the trucks hurtling off with its load of marble.

Notice the truck emerging from the tunnel along an ancient bridge, which would have been built in early Roman times, as the marble was used in their temples. And it can still bear all that weight.