19th century marble tunnel

Words
566
Reading
3 min
Listen
Play
5y

I challenge you to share a more miserable Sunday than the one I have at the moment: After a 13 hour power down it's cloudy and raining all day long. Not all is bad though, the absence of electricity offered me a night lit entirely by a fireplace and several candles. How sweet that light is and how much we miss it...

Most importantly I took the chance of the last fantastic day to have a ride around combined with a walk in the woods. Here's where I left the bike to start walking:
DSC_0122.JPG

I think it won't complain with a view like this but let's see what my eyes can harvest meanwhile. Fancy some brown fungi for starters?

DSC_0123.JPGDSC_0124.JPG

Sweet aren't they?
I mean their looks - no idea if they are edible enough to leave any space for sweetness.

One step away a pine tree is about to have its final rest:

DSC_0125.JPGDSC_0127.JPG

Its pine friends make the whole place such a wonderful experience. The area is very low in population and the only thing you hear around most of the times is birds singing. A heaven for eyes and ears. To my surprise I find this cute loo made of wood later but such a pity that it is left in this state for who knows how long:
DSC_0129.JPG

DSC_0128.JPGDSC_0130.JPGDSC_0131.JPG

I turn around to walk the rest of the area when I stop at this view:
DSC_0114.JPG

Colourful for both good and bad reasons. The partially black mountain you see in the background is one of the victims of last summer's wildfires. Just imagine how flammable those pine trees are during a heatwave's drought and you get the picture.

Walking down that road led me to this:
DSC_0115.JPG

Wow! A marble tunnel probably built in late 19th century during the silver rush of the area that today looks literally in the middle of nowhere questioning what was the exact purpose of it:

DSC_0116.JPG

It's a bit surprising that there's no info about it. No matter how much I tried to cross check things from close and looking at the maps later I couldn't relate it with any of the train infrastructure of that time (the train there used to carry silver from the mines not passengers) neither it's looks can tell much today as it doesn't connect two sides anymore on its top.

I really like its arch:

DSC_0119.JPGDSC_0117.JPGDSC_0120.JPG

And the various holes they kept on its walls to allow the rain's water to drain:
DSC_0118.JPG

Let's have a look at it from the other side:
DSC_0121.JPG

Time to see how it looks from the top:

DSC_0107.JPGDSC_0108.JPG
DSC_0110.JPGDSC_0111.JPG

As you can see in the next picture it doesn't lead anywhere but did it use to?
DSC_0109.JPG

I took this one stepping right on the edge but I hope no one else does because wet marble has almost zero friction and this one under the shade of pine trees can stay wet all day:

DSC_0112.JPG

At this point you might wanna watch a video from my walk around, under and over it. It could be a little less shaky but I was testing at the same time my DIY action camera cupid to see how it works for hands free walking videos so here's my first try:

Hope you enjoyed it, see you on the next one!

19th century marble tunnel | Ecency