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Abandoned Marble Caves - Trek on the Tuscan Coast

Abandoned Marble Caves - Trek on the Tuscan Coast

May 2021 · 3 min read · Tuscany

Near the hills close to the Tyrrhenian Sea(Mare Tirreno) lies the town of Castagneto Carducci, overwatching the plains that lead to the coast. Here is a tourist paradise where you can enjoy calm from the busy cities by the seaside and delicius food meanwhile having a more fresh weather during the hot italian summers. But if you dare a bit further on the hills watching the innir side of the peninsula you can find the smallest of towns. Little gems that even this pandemic hardly touched. My first journey after the lockdown was toward the houses of Sassetta here we begin our walk.

A glimpse from Sassetta houses
A glimpse from Sassetta houses

Sassetta is a quiet place, one of the tiniest towns in Tuscany. For the record here only 2 cases of Covid 19' has spread. From the towns sparks many routes around the hills and the woods. Before the technology made traveling easier this was a stop before arriving to Castagneto Carducci and other towns of the coast. As we walked toward the sea we fund many houses that flourished on this path thanks to the merchant passing by.

The hillside roadhouse
The hillside roadhouse

Maybe it was a bit dangerous but I could not resist and take a peak inside the old abandoned house, there's something to a forgetten place that I'm drawn to, I find fascinating the aging of human architecture without any care taken. Here life must have been simple with news and novelties brought by those who travelled this hillside road.

Nature taking back proprieties
Nature taking back proprieties
Hairy house
Hairy house
The hunter’s path
The hunter's path

After we diverged from the merchant's road and took the hunter's one. You can easily tell the difference by how clean one is and the other is not. To our luck the valley was just underneath so we just walked down and then found this big road where the torrent run in the wet months. Freshly tracks made by some truck where on the road. Someone working around here?

While the trucks noises could be heard that morning we never got what they where doing overthere, instead the road at somepoint opened up into this beautiful abandoned marble cave.

The opened way
The opened way

The contrast of the squared and sawed marble rocks with the natural confusion of the woods was such a beautiful sight. We knew that many caves lied in that area(in the end Carrara's world famous marble caves are just some 100 kilometers away) but when from the woods this formation started to appear was surprising anyway!

Old excavation instruments
Old excavation instruments
The abandoned marble caves
The abandoned marble caves

On the way back from a solitary eremo wich is a construction by those who want to live apart from the society. In this case you could really tell that this person was really fed up with society but still wanted to look at what others do because it ended up building this small house in a such hard place to reach but with many towns and places nearby.From there we could see all the way to the islands and the sourrounding caves.

The view from the eremo
The view from the eremo

Well this is the first of hopefully many new journeys! Hope you all safe travels :D

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