italee: Apuane Mountains: Caves of Antro del Corchia" and a feast!

This past Wednesday we had the opportunity to go to this incredible marble caves up in the Apuane Mountains. The program that I'm with definitely has the adventure/activities part down. We left early in the afternoon for a nice bus ride up some of the craziest roads I've seen….all in a charter bus mind you. I don't know how we made it one some of these roads, let alone had people go by us. Lets just say I didn't sleep. Not only because I was focused on the fact that there was no road outside my window but also because beyond that was amazing views going by/above all the quarries, through the mountains, and mountain towns. When we got to a point where the buses could literally go no further the smaller buses from the caves came and picked us up for the tour.

These caves were insane. Our guide said that it's one of the largest in the world and largest in Europe. Don't quote me directly on that because we couldn't hear out guide due to being in the back behind our Italian teachers. Let's just say the Italians don't do adventurous things a whole lot so climbing on every rock was a big ordeal. It didn't matter though because that just gave us more time to take pictures (with out a flash of course :) Being in a cave is one of the most bizarre feelings in the world. Knowing already you're inside a mountain and then climbing farther down = weird. They had all the main different parts of the cave and each one was unique. I could never really wrap my brain about what we were seeing. Looking at my pictures from it though, everything looks the same… let me just say that in person it was 100x cooler than my pictures could capture. We were on stairs most the time and then a walkway that they had built. Made me feel a lot safer in some areas where all you could see is that it kept going down. There were little lakes throughout and it was the stillest water I have ever seen. It was an amazing thing to see.

After we finished our tour, we went back to the little town where we had left the buses. There we were treated to a true 'Italian dinner.' I have never ate so much food at one point in my life. I honestly don't know where I or anyone else found room to put it. Let me just lay out the menu for it…

On the table: bread

Appetizer: amazing stuffed tomato thing (possibly with hummus), salami, brushette, fried bread ball things, a fried polenta with salsa on top which tasted kind of like enchilada filling, and then an artichoke/cauliflower quiche thing. The only thing I didn't eat was the artichoke thing, I was stuffed after all this though. So what did I naturally do… kept eating of course

1st Course: 2 types of homemade pasta, one was a linguini type thing and then stuffed ravioli. Of course French bread with cheese on top was served with these.

2nd Course: we had our pick from either turkey, pork, or chicken. I opted for the turkey and pork which was a great decision but then again there wasn't really a wrong choice during the meal.
Dessert: a delightful yet weird texture rice pudding cake thing. How could I stop?

I'm afraid that if all the meals in Florence are like that I won't survive… It was incredible, but also a ton of food. Any time I thought my plate was close to empty they came around with something new. Talk about a little piece of heaven!! By the time we left it was 10 and so we had to get back in our huge buses and try and find our way down the mountain with just the buses lights to guide us. Never a dull moment.

Things are finally wrapping up in Lido di Camaiore. It's been a great time here where we were kept very busy. Everyone has hit the point where we just want to be settled in our apartments in Florence. Luckily that's happening tomorrow. We take our Italian final in the morning and then peace out. Our apartment is apparently right in the city which should be entertaining and exciting. The next chapter is about to begin, wish me luck!