Forti dei Marmi and Carrara - June 26, 2003
Getting to Paris was easy. Getting to Nice to pick up our leased Renault was a bit more difficult. We rushed through the fire in Charles De Gaulle Terminal 1; for all you United fliers, you should know that as the odious smoke filled the terminal and ticketing agents were fleeing the building, only the United desks remained open. Extra value service or extra stupidity? You decide. 
But we did eventually arrive in Nice, and there was our brand new Renault Laguna, so new that it didn’t even have a key, or gas for that matter. We just shoved a card into a slot under the radio and pushed a start button to the right of the steering wheel, and after a brief stop to fill up the tank, we were on the way.

We started our journey at 12:30pm on June 25th. At 8:30pm, June 26th, 23 hours later, we arrived to Il Bottoccio di Montignoso, a very small hotel near Forte Dei Marmi on the lower Italian Riviera. And it was brutally hot!!!! The thermostat in the Laguna read 33° celsius, about 95° Fahrenheit. But we didn’t care. We were in Italia. As we pulled into the driveway, two beautiful women in formal wear ran out to greet us. We thought they were confusing us with some guests coming in for a wedding, but apparently Christy and Erika dress like this every night. The lobby was beautiful. The restaurant tables surrounding the indoor swimming pool were charming. The grounds of the old mill were most picturesque. At first glance, our room was, let’s say traditional. The view was beautiful, the art, in the school of Michaelangelo was so dreadful it was actually funny. The red tiled bathroom with the dungeon door was amusing. But then it struck us, there was no air conditioning and it was still 33° celsius. This turned out to be the worst heat wave in 70 years. People all across Europe were fainting and dying. No one was prepared.

June 27
It took Michaelangelo weeks to climb the Alpi Apuane mountains to Carrera on the back of a horse. Even in the car, the climb took over an hour until we finally stopped near mine #136. From below, the 6,000 ft  peaks above Carrera  almost look covered in a blanket of snow, but as we got closer, we could see the carefully laid out negative shapes of building blocks removed from the mountain. We walked through the quarries, covering ourselves with a thick layer of white marble dust. Talk about occupational hazards. The workers up there must suck down a pound of dust a year. Carrera is a city about marble. As one marble yard ends, another begins, layers upon layers of sliced slabs, leaning against each other liked oversized canvases stacked in a museum anti-chamber, and not just the white marble from Carrera. Within a 40km radius, there is amber marble, black marble, rust colored, white with grey veins and blood red. Trucks carrying 8 cubic ft of solid marble blocked the traffic along the narrow roads. Sawmills sprayed white dust throughout the neighborhoods, and stoneyards crush tossed away remnants into small pebbles probably to be used for terrazzo or landscaping.

There haven’t been too many opportunities to wear shorts in San Francisco and consequently our legs were pale and pastey. But the additional white layer of marble dust got lots of heads turning as we hit the beaches of Forte dei Marmi and Pietrasante. On a normal summer day these grand beaches lined with hotel cabanas, chaise lounges and umbrellas play host to thousands of people, but it was so hot, the beaches were empty with the exception of a few determined tourists and some children who just couldn’t stay out of the water, even with the threat of the “le meduse”, the local jellyfish floating a mere 75 ft away from the shore. As the water gets warmer, “le meduse” come in closer and it’s been heating up here for two months.

That night our Moroccan waiter, Simo served us samples of the fresh local fish, braided sole in lemon sauce and gallinata. And later night I dreamt that all the old marble from Carrera came alive and decided to return to the Alpi Apuane. Marble countertops were tearing themselves from kitchens all over the world. Churches crumbled as the animated marble slabs tore themselves from archways, floors and alters. Anthropomorphic statues ran out of towns and villages, running back to the scarred mountains and throwing themselves back into the large white gash. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the gallinata. Maybe it was the ambien I’d been taking for the last two nights.