Italy Trip: Day Two - Carrara Marble and Temple

Day two in Italy, we woke up and headed straight for the mountains. The mountains in Carrara are white. It looks like snow, but actually, it is marble!

You can see from these two videos I took as we approached the mountains how the white tips look like snow.

We were set to explore the marble quarries where marble has been mined for centuries. The marble for Michelangelo, other artists, and for the Rome temple all came from these mountains. Once we arrived at the base, we put on hard hats and orange vests before we loaded into jeeps for a crazy Jurrasic-park type ride up the mountain.

We went on the same roads that all the mining trucks take and they wind higher and higher with big drop-offs. Sometimes we had to stop and wait for the huge trucks to pass. I don't like heights, so I was terrified. Everything was white - covered in marble dust - and we passed bridges and bumped into each other on the bouncy ride. We also learned these were the same roads that James Bond races through in the beginning of Quantum of Solace.







I was relieved when we made it to the top and parked.

A happy look that we made it, and a traumatized-from-the-ride look.

We listened to the procedures for mining marble, picked up marble pieces to examine (I pocketed a couple small pieces for home later), and enjoyed the gorgeous view from the top of the mountain, over the marble, and out to the sea.

It was worth the treacherous drive up for the beautiful views and magnificent marble. But then it was time to head back down! I thought it would be way worse going down, but it didn't end up being quite so bad.

At the bottom, we stopped to watch how the marble taken from the mines is cut and sculpted. We were able to see the beginnings of a project being laser-cut.

A lot of the projects here are secret so we weren't allowed to take photographs. But we headed to another workshop where we toured an entire studio of sculpturing.

Here they keep the big blocks of marble and use them for the commissioned projects. The statues for the temple were all sculpted at this studio.

I love marble!

Before we entered the studio, Brigham gave chiseling the marble a go.

He thought it was pretty tough work.

Inside, we watched workers as they sculpted and chiseled and we admired many pieces of art.

The butterfly's wings in the dome are paper thin. We had no idea how the crafter was able to get marble that thin! It was incredible.

We left the marble quarries and headed from Carrara back to Rome. On the way back, we stopped at a gas station to get lunch.

Gas stations in Italy are much fancier than gas stations in the US. They have multiple restaurants with places to sit down and eat. Brigham and I shared some pizza and a sandwich loaded with mozzarella cheese before we headed on the road again.

Before we knew it, we were approaching the Rome, Italy temple!

A beautiful temple, it felt a little bit like we were coming home in such a foreign place.

We also ran into a former BYU Volleyball player, Sanders, and I stalk-took his picture in the waiting area. Except he noticed and was looking right at the camera.

The details of the temple and artwork, plus the Spirit of the house of the Lord created a special experience in the Rome temple.

Unfortunately, we were with a large group of people and so we were ushered through pretty quickly. We wished we could spend much longer looking at the rooms. We even tried to sneak back in for a second tour, but that didn't work out.

symbolic olive tree on temple grounds

The visitor's center is almost just as impressive as the temple. The Christus with the statues of the twelve original apostles in the background is breathtaking.

A beautiful stain-glass mural takes up an entire wall and an area for children that looks like and represents a house for an eternal family are also in the visitor's center.

Everything is supposed to match the history and location of Italy, and you could truly see those details.

We stayed until after dark, admiring the view of the sunset.

And the temple shining bright in the dark night.

Brigham got his picture taken in front of the olive tree and then we were off to our hotel to get some rest.

How could we not love the day filled with the temple and the wonder of God's creations in the marble quarries? The temple was the main reason we booked this trip, and to remember our experience as it was dedicated and watch as the entire First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles joined there together and broadcasted stories and inspiring messages filled me with nostalgia and gratitude for our opportunity to see this temple in a place of so much religious history.

Italy Trip: Day One - Florence and Pisa

After a terrible night's sleep, we were up early leaving our hotel at 5:00 am to make our way to Florence. We received a bagged breakfast with interesting, packaged, Italian pastries, juice, orange, and water.

It was our first chance to view the Italian landscape as we rode in our tour bus for four hours to get to Florence.

We did take a rest stop at a gas station where we could purchase fresh pastries and where Mom and I marveled at their giant Pringle cans.

And then on the road again, looking at the winter, Italian landscape.

Once we were in Florence, we walked to the Accademia Museum and I snapped some shots of our walk. It was our first experience with the streets of Italy.

 At the Accademia museum, we were able to view The David, Michelangelo's most famous sculpture, and tons of other sculptures and artwork.

I felt more impressed with The David than I thought I would be. In person, it is huge! And the personnel keep it quiet with a hushed, reverent atmosphere around the statue. Once I got over the fact that it was a giant, naked man, it was easy to be awed by the art and size.

Some of the unfished sculptures were very interesting as you got a glimpse into the process of sculpting.

Another room was filled with sculpture after sculpture from another artist. We walked through and picked out our favorites.

Someday, maybe someone will sculpt a bust of me. Ha!

After the Accademia museum, we had free time so we set out to explore the city of Florence on foot.

The first place we stopped and checked out truly reveals the nature of our family: The Lindor Store!

This place was covered wall to wall with different kinds of truffles. And the middle of the store had more bins with even more different flavor selections. We picked out different flavors we'd never seen or tried before and bought a bag full of goodness before we were off. Later we all agreed that purchase was probably the best one of the whole trip and that we should have bought a whole lot more!

Right across from the Lindor Store was the famous Duomo - a giant cathedral that is beautiful and amazing to look at.

You can't even capture a decent picture of the building because the scope and majesty of the structure are too large for a little camera. Choosing not to go inside this church due to lines and knowing we would be seeing plenty of other cathedrals in the future, we continued through the streets until we found our desired place to get lunch.

 I Due Fratellini is a tiny, little shop off the main road that would be really easy to pass by if you weren't looking for it. However, locals love this sandwich shop with its baked-fresh daily bread and different meats and fillings you can layer on top. We each chose a sandwich that had a pastrami-like meat and truffle sauce. It was the first time we tried truffle sauce. The flavor was good, but strong and salty, and Brigham ended up finishing all three of the giant sandwiches as we made our way to Ponte Vecchio.

Ponte Vecchio is one of the bridges that cross the Arno river. This bridge is specifically touristy as it's the main drag filled with diamond and jewelry shops and other stands where you can buy souvenirs and get your picture taken.

Playing our part well, we took our own pictures and bought some keychain souvenirs for the kids.

It was beautiful and I wished a had a moment longer to enjoy the view.

But! There's too much to see and do and so little time. Shortly after crossing Ponte Vecchio, we turned a corner and arrived at the Pitti Palace where the Medicci family and others used to reside when they reigned in Florence. Not many people talk about visiting the Pitti Palace and so I was nervous it would be sort of a bust. But if you put the word palace next to something and have it open for visitors, you better believe I'm going to want to see it!

And I'm so glad I did! It was everything I imagined a palace to be. I didn't take hardly any pictures, and the ones I did take don't do it much justice, but the rooms were ornate and grand and impressive. Every ceiling was painted. The furniture was handcrafted with exquisite details. Marble columns and doorframes were around every corner.

The palace had so much to see, and we didn't even have time to explore the gardens. Peeking out the window, they looked beautiful as well.

The Pitti Palace had an interesting fashion display of apparel themed around animals, bugs, and creatures taking place as well, and we took a picture of these crazy shoes for my sister, Sadie.











After Pitti Palace, we walked through a small market area, stopped for our first round of gelato (probably my least favorite out of all the gelatos we tried), took a bathroom break, and headed back to the bus so we could continue on to Pisa - an hour away.

A quick tiny-train ride from the bus and we arrived at the leaning tower of Pisa.

Here we wandered around the various buildings.

Our first interest was the Campsanto, a monumental cemetery. Lots of important people are buried here and I enjoyed making up stories about the different types of characters based on the markings on their graves.

In my research before leaving for Italy, I read that the Compsanto was built around a field of soil brought back from the crusades. Legend has it that a body would rot in 24 hours in the soil. We looked everywhere for said soil and never found it. We asked for help finding it, but the Italian/English language barrier got in our way. And then on the bus on the way back to the hotel, when it was asked if anyone missed anything, Mom said, "We didn't find the dirt." Everyone looked at us like we were crazy, and suddenly it was left to me to explain about the crusader soil I read about. Apparently, no one (including the local Italians) has heard of "the dirt" and I became the joke of the tour with my research binder and our tromping around to find legendary dirt.

I still think the story is true. And if the building was built around this holy soil, then the grass is probably growing where it used to be. Right??

The baptistry at Pisa was neat to explore.

Previously, it had been built in order to do baptism by immersion, but in later days it's been altered to only perform the sprinkling of the water on the head baptisms.

We climbed the stairs to the top of the baptism tower and it was like we were climbing winding stairs in an old castle. I loved it!

At the top of the stairs, we could look down into the baptistry and enjoy the views of the stripes and symmetry.

We were able to sneak into the Duomo at the last second before leaving Pisa.

 Another impressive cathedral full of artwork and architecture.

















We couldn't leave Pisa without taking some of the classic leaning tower pictures. Brigham wanted to look like he was holding it, and Mom wanted to look like she was tipping it back up.

On our way back to the train we were scammed by some vendors selling souvenirs, and totally bought into it. We thought we were doing a good job of haggling the price down, but as we got further and further away, we noticed the same items were on sale for even cheaper than what we had haggled for. We could have paid one Euro for the same statue of the Leaning Tower that we just paid three Euro for. We laughed about it for the rest of the trip.

That night we ate dinner at the hotel and fell exhausted into our beds, trying to push through our jet lag to sleep so we start day two in Italy in the morning.