The most fascinating visit was to Marble mines in Italy. It is in the area called as Tuscany. It is on its northern part. From a distance one would think that it is snow covered mountain. But it is not so. I think only an ace driver can take his or her car up in the mountain. My friend Elke, though not an ace driver, but a very bold one and I wonder whether at any time she has said throughout our almost 40 years travel that she cannot drive on a particular road unless she was tired. According to me driving in the carara mines area is challenging. When we were driving in that area I used to tell her that let us turn back. But even this was not possible because of narrow roads. It was years ago and now perhaps the roads must have been improved. I was holding my breath in my hands as we scaled the mountain in the car which was a buggy type volkaswagon! It is in that car we traveled almost 14500 kms in about 28 days all over Europe!
The cutting of marble is also interesting. It is with machines. We have in my part of the country, there are stone quarries of “laterite stone†They are red in colour with several porous on its surface and they are mainly used in construction work such as houses or compound walls etc as they resist extreme weather condition of this part of the country.
