What is Carrara known for?

650+ quarry sites in Torano, Fantiscritti and Colonnata, the source of more marble than anywhere on earth since Roman times. Personally selected the stone for the Pietà and the David from the Polvaccio quarry above Torano starting in 1497. Founded 1769 by Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, still training sculptors who work the surrounding marble studios.

Carrara is a comune in the province of Massa-Carrara, Tuscany region of Italy, about 56 kilometers from Pisa.

Tuscany · Massa-Carrara

Carrara

The marble town at the foot of the Apuan Alps, with over 650 quarry sites in the valleys above and the stone that built the Pantheon, the Pietà and Michelangelo's David.

56 km / 35 mi

Nearest hub (Pisa)

59,905

Population

May–Sep

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Carrara sitsin the narrow plain where the Apuan Alps drop to the Tyrrhenian. The 650-plus marble quarries in the three valleys above the town, Torano, Fantiscritti and Colonnata, have produced more marble than any other place on earth, worked since Roman times. The white and blue-grey stone went into the Pantheon and Trajan's Column. Michelangelo first came in 1497 to find marble for his Pietà and kept returning until he opened his own quarry in the Polvaccio above Torano, still called Cava di Michelangelo. The Duomo di Sant'Andrea, begun in the eleventh century, was the first medieval church built entirely of the local stone, with a bichrome marble façade. The city's Accademia di Belle Arti has trained sculptors since 1769 and the surrounding studi still work commissions for sculptors who never set foot in Italy.

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Gallery

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We've been

Feature from our free newsletter

Colonnata, Carrara, and the Marble Mines | The White Mountain And The Fat

The road that goes up to Colonnata ends at Colonnata, and you understand this only when you arrive, because the village sits on a shelf of the mountain that the road was built to reach, and there is nowhere else for the road to go. I had driven up from the coast on a Tuesday in late spring with the windows open. I had come up to eat fat.

Read the full feature on anywhereitaly.com

We’ve tried

Restaurants, walks, swims. Things we tried in Carrara.

Lardo di Colonnata, the pork fat aged in marble that needs nothing but bread.
Lardo di Colonnata | The fat that needs nothing

Known for

Duomo di Sant'Andrea
Eleventh-century cathedral, the first medieval church built entirely of Apuan marble, with a Romanesque-Gothic bichrome façade finished in the fourteenth century.
Cave di Marmo
Over 650 quarry sites in the Torano, Fantiscritti and Colonnata valleys, worked since Roman times and visible on cave tours from the town.
Piazza Alberica
Sixteenth-century square built by Alberico I Cybo Malaspina inside the expanded city walls, ringed by marble façades and a central statue of Maria Beatrice d'Este.
Castello Malaspina
Medieval-into-Renaissance Malaspina seat, later the home of the Accademia di Belle Arti since 1805.
Museo Civico del Marmo
Civic museum documenting two thousand years of quarrying, with Roman tools, geological samples and modern sculpture.
Cava di Michelangelo (Polvaccio)
The Torano-valley quarry where Michelangelo personally selected marble for the Pietà and David, still in operation.

When to visit

Best months · May–Sep

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

May through September is when the cave tours run reliably and the seafront frazione of Marina di Carrara fills with families from Lombardia and Emilia. June is the best month for the quarries: long light, stable weather, and the white-on-white-on-grey of the cuts is visible at the Fantiscritti viewpoint without the August haze. July and August add heat and tour buses, particularly at Colonnata where the lardo cellars stay cool. October through April most beach concessions close, but the centro storico runs year-round and the Carrara Marble Weeks studios open to visitors on rotation through winter.