Before long we were parked outside ‘The Largest Marble Mine In The World’ or so it said – which was strange as we expected them to be all quarries. There was a cardboard clock on the side of a small hut stating that the next tour would begin in about 20 minutes. We were told to come back nearer the time, collect a safety hat and board one of the Mini buses – but not to pay until we got back - which at the time seemed a little odd. Soon we were bumping along inside a huge mountain, hoping that the speck of light at the end of the tunnel would not disappear, but relishing the coolness of the constant 16 degrees centigrade (we even wore our coats!). We had a lovely guide who talked us through all the different processes used, her Italian accent using ‘the’ in front of every word and rolling lots of ‘r’s. We got to see and feel the helicoidal and diamond impregnated wire that the marble is now cut with. The size the blocks are huge and judging from the small amount of noise we made and how loud we seemed, to have men working machinery in there must be completely deafening. Apparently staying underground for eight hours at a time drives you potty and the miners see figures in the stone they have cut. We thought we could see two dancers and Madonna and Child in the cut face and we were only down there 20 minutes!! At the end of the tour everyone loaded back in the vans and trundled off. Unfortunately, where there had been three vans to bring us in, there were now only two and having been occupied by taking ‘just one more’ photo, we found ourselves without transport for our trip back to the outside world. “Don’t worry, we be back in 5 minutes to collect you” said our guide…after 10 we were beginning to worry…
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