An Gnam Gnam and a March in the Shadow of the Alps: Matchday in Carrara

There cannot be many better views from an Italian football ground than this one. Stand in the Curva Nord at the Stadio dei Marmi, look past the far touchline, and the Apuan Alps fill the sky – white-streaked, quarried, close enough to pick out the roads cut into them.

Carrarese returned to Serie B in 2024 after a 76-year absence, and the town is still slightly disbelieving about it. But matchday here has a rhythm that has not changed much: drink by the sea, eat in the town, walk to the ground.

Start the day with… an aperitivo at Camboli

Go down to the coast first. Pasticceria Camboli in Marina di Carrara is where the day begins properly – a pasticceria that pours wine, open from seven in the morning, and the right place for a late-morning aperitivo before you head inland.

It’s a 20-minute drive or a short train-and-bus hop from Marina up to Carrara, so there is no rush. Sit outside, have a coffee and then something colder, and watch the town do its Saturday.

Explore… the marble on the way up

Between the sea and the stadium sits everything that made this place. Avenza is the middle ground; above Carrara the quarries open up into the mountains, white gashes visible from the coast road.

If you have the morning and a car, drive up to the Cave di Fantiscritti or as far as Colonnata, where lardo is cured in marble tubs and the road runs between working quarries. If you do not, the marble is unavoidable anyway – it is in the pavements, the doorways, the fountains and the name of the stadium you are walking to.

Grab food at… Tognozzi, for a gnam gnam

Back in Carrara, eat the one thing you cannot eat anywhere else. The gnam gnam is the house dish at Pizzeria Tognozzi on Via Santa Maria – known to everyone in town as ‘dalla Franca’. It is a focaccia opened up and filled with pizza and calda calda: the chickpea flatbread that Genoa calls farinata and Livorno calls cecina, but which here has a name that just means ‘hot hot’, because that is how it comes out of the copper pan and that is how you are meant to eat it.

Chickpea flour, dough and bread in a single object. It sounds like a dare. It is, in fact, the most Carrarese thing you will eat all day – cheap, heavy, and invented by people who needed lunch to last a shift.

One practical thing: Tognozzi is closed on Sundays, so if the fixture is a Sunday one, go on the Saturday.

If you are sitting down instead, the dishes to look for are muscoli ripieni – stuffed mussels, cooked in tomato, and never called cozze here – and tagliolini nei fagioli, fresh pasta in a bean broth. Neither is elegant. Both are the food of this coast. And there is always torta di riso, sold by the slice, if you want something in your hand for the walk.

Get the pre-match buzz… at the Eurobar

This is the one. The Eurobar on Viale XX Settembre is a five-minute walk from the Stadio dei Marmi, and at lunchtime on a matchday it belongs to the Curva Nord. It is not a tourist stop and nobody will make a fuss of you, which is exactly the point.

Eat there, drink there, and then walk. The five minutes to the ground with the crowd around you is the best part of the day. Outside the stadium there are street food stalls, so leave a little room.

Watch from… the Curva Nord

Buy tickets online for the Curva Nord, named after Lauro Perini, the historic leader of the Carrara support who died in 2001. It is where the organised groups have always been.

The curva reopened in December 2025, rebuilt as a tubular stand closer to the goal line – an English-style arrangement, done specifically to bring supporters nearer the pitch and lift the atmosphere. It holds around 2200, and it took the ground’s overall capacity to the 5500 the Serie B authorities require.

It works. The curva is now close to the action, and behind the far end you have the mountains. There is no ground in the division that looks like this.

Celebrate victory… outside the ground, then in Marina

The first celebration happens where you are standing. The area outside the stadium fills up after the whistle and stays full – this is a town that still treats Serie B as something remarkable, because for 76 years it was.

Then head back down to Marina di Carrara. The coast is where the night goes, and after a win it goes on for a while. The sea on one side, the marble mountains behind you in the dark, and a town that waited a very long time.