A Weekend in the Republic of San Marino

This weekend we had the lovely idea to head to San Marino for a few days. Well, technically the other girls here had the idea to go to San Marino and so generously let me come with them!

So the Republic of San Marino is the third smallest Country in Europe—behind Vatican and Monaco. It’s “overwhelmingly urban” with two thirds of the country’s population located within the three cities of San Marino City, Maggiore, and Serravalle. However, three fifths of the land is given to permanent cultivation—mainly producing wheat, grapes, and barley—although it’s not a vital part of the economy. Tradition says that St Marinus, along with other Christians, settled on top of Mount Titano during the fourth century to avoid prosecution and then in the 12th century, the general council was developed, which allowed them to rule as an independent republic. Although they were respected as an independent nation by many, the first treaty confirming their independence wasn’t signed until 1862.

From our town of Porto Sant’Elpidio, we had to take two trains, each about an hour long. Our second train ended up picking us up ten minutes late and we rolled into our destination 64 minutes late. Another fun dilemma we ran into is that our carriage was overbooked and there were seven tickets to six seats in the car. Public transportation in Italy is not the most reliable.

Our first order of business was to find our hostel. We took a taxi and settled ourselves in. The five of us ended up in the same room to ourselves. The hostel in general turned out to be adorable and really nice place to stay. The only weird part was that there was only one shower. It was never really an issue though so I can’t complain. They even provided coffee and breakfast every day.

For dinner, we ended up going to the restaurant on the bottom level of the hostel and it was surprisingly amazing. We went back for dinner the next night actually. I had Cannelloni one night and a falafel the next. And we spent the evenings in the bar as well. It was all around a really great hostel. I would recommend it.

On Saturday, we took a bus to the center of San Marino. The tourist destination. There’s a whole town of shops, restaurants and museums in this little town and it’s entirely built on an incline. There are three fortresses on the top of the mountain and everything we read online had said that it was quite a hike to get up to the fortresses. We were dressed in athletic gear and packed for a hike. When we arrived, however, we realized that those reviews were all exaggerations. We were really underdressed for this town. Everyone was looking glamorous and mainly came to this town to take advantage of the zero sales tax. It is a slightly strenuous walk if you’re not in shape, but it’s in no way a hike. When we first arrived, we took photos of the amazing landscape because we didn’t know that it was only going to get better. A lot of older towns in Italy were built on top of hills to protect their villages so now they get the advantage of beautiful views I guess. I have endless photos of Italian valleys because they’re all so beautiful.

When we moved on to the town, I immediately got separated from the group and got lost. Turns out they were in a shop right near the entrance but I was scared that they went ahead without me so I ran ahead and ended up at the first fortress because I was so lost. It wasn’t a very intelligent thing to do, I admit. But when I finally found everyone again, we made our way to the first fortress where we decided to go in. There’s a really great pass that allows you to enter all the museums and castles in the town for seven euros and we were so excited to take advantage of that. There were a bunch of people acting inside the castles to give a sense of time period I guess, but it was a bit bizarre and I wasn’t quite sure what time period we were experiencing. But other that that there was a great view of the valley, yet again, and another great opportunity for photos. To get to the highest tower, we had to use a steep ladder through a tight trapdoor with one-way traffic. So we had to wait for everyone upstairs to come down before we went up and then the other way as well. It was not great.

After that we headed to the second fortress. There were significantly less people at this one and I don’t know if that’s because it was at lunchtime or if everyone was too tired to make it to the next but there were significantly less people. We enjoyed the place to ourselves, which was awesome because this is the tallest tower on the mountain so when I stood on the wall, I got to see the city from the highest point. It was amazing and also terrifying. After that we had a simple lunch of pizza and an amazing gelato for dessert. Next we casually strolled to the museums of the town. There was a third fortress but it was closed so there was no reason for us to walk the whole way there. We spent some time there but mainly spent the rest of the day moving slowly and relaxing.

Our trains back to Porto were, surprisingly, all on time and without any major inconveniences! I know Italian transport is supposed to be unreliable and sketchy but I’ve been so lucky to avoid any issues like that. Overall, it was a really relaxing weekend, which is exactly what I needed after two weeks of camp.