Yes folks that is spelled correctly. Now say it out loud and say it proud. If you sound like an Italian trying to speaka da english you are right. Literally, Breccanecca is saying "break your neck" widda da accent. Local lore has it that this mountain village was named by the Allied forces that were here during the end of WWII. They gave this village that name because of the difficulty in ascending and descending this mountain. Look here for more on the area. I have this image in my head of some young Army draftee from Brooklyn NY who had the unfortunate assignment to patrol this mountain looking for the odd Nazi still lingering in a cave and complaining to everyone about his fear of breaking his neck. Seems plausible, no? Anyway, as I saying, back to the significance of this silly name, there was a reason that mountain will break your neck if you try to climb it. It is paved with ardesia, in other words, slate!!!! Think blackboards. Why? It is the La via dell'Ardesia. The way of Slate. That was the reason people for centuries climbed that mountain, to mine the slate out of the caves. The city below, the one next to Chiavari is named, Lavangna and Lavangna is the Italian word for Blackboard, i.e.: slate. Now, imagine the descent with moist air and wet weather like we had today! It is no wonder that we didn't break our necks.
The walk was well worth it. If you take this walk today you can see the old mines and the slag mounds covering the top of the mountain. The view from atop Mt. Sangiacomo was breathtaking. We could see from Sestri Levante to Portofino!
As I was doing a little research on the net about this area I stumbled across this fact. Do you know who carried the mined slate? WOMEN. And yes, they were barefoot!!!!!! See, we are the stronger sex! Here is the proof!
In very bad English:
It is born with the name of Blackboard, since not only came extracted in Fontanabuona but also in the area of the Sangiacomo mount near Cogorno, and from l? through the "carriers" untiring women who transported barefoot in order not to lose the equilibrium the slabs on the head, they arrived to being boarded for the distribution, and sure a ecomuseo to stages is one of the more important stages of the "Way of the slate" that offers the possibility to visit some of the places more interesting legacies to the history and the production of the from Liguria black stone.
Part from the locality of Chiapparino (approximately 16 km. from the casello of Blackboard) where has been prepared in an ancient laboratory of the 1900 suit of chimney, an Office information, a gallery of photo of the adjacent zone to a room where one of the tables from billiards is exposed on which Tom Cruise and Paul Newman in the film have played "the color of the moneies", one knows it conferences and a curatissimo showroom dedicated to the oggettistica and the furnishings.
To Isolona the second stage extension the hollow basements dug in the heart of the mountain and visitabili also to the inside and "barac?n" the shed where it came worked the slate after the extraction.
Finally to Cicagna we can see in a small museum the first mechanical segatrici that go back to 1948 and that they allowed the man to abandon the piccone for the extraction.
An other permanent extension close to the Museum of Cicagna is "Fontanabuona, archaeology and history" that the history of the valley from the antiquity to the Middle Ages travels over again faithfully.
Quite the traces of I use of the black stone go back to the necropoli preistorica of Chiavari of the Viii-ways century $R-avanti.C$cristo and they show to us as already in the tombe to cassette "ciappe" maestria and precision were worked with.
Mount Tuggio di Tribogna fifth stage of the distance, offers a panoramic one between its several forests of the hollow ones dug in the land nearly to seem lairs of animals.
Last less meaningful stage but is not the visit to the BASILICA Of the FIESCHI that us extension in all the its splendor the use of the slate in all its structures is external that inner while near Saint Salvatore here the distance of the carriers about which we have spoken previously from the Saint Mount Giacomo towards Blackboard.
Keep Trecking!
Krista
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