Greetings from the world’s oldest continuous republic. That’s right, with documents dating back to 1600 the Republic of San Marino lays claim to that title, along with a couple other top five finishes. San Marino, Lesotho and Vatican City are the only three countries in the world that are completely surrounded by a single other country, Italy in the case of San Marino and the Vatican, and South Africa for Lesotho. San Marino is also the world’s fifth smallest nation, behind only Vatican City, Monaco, and the Pacific Island nations of Nauru and Tuvalu. Oddly enough, we’ve now visited three of the five, though I don’t think we’ll get out to the remaining two—Tuvalu and Nauru—any time soon.
San Marino is also challenging to get to, as it sits on top of rugged Monte Titano, accessible by (here we go again) a narrow, winding road with numerous hairpin turns and switchbacks. So of course we had to go. And to my surprise, there’s more to San Marino than Mount Titano, or at least the cliff-like billy goat part. San Marino has an area of 23.5 square miles, and most of that is on the more gently rising base of the mountain, where most of the population of 34,000 lives and works. The part on top of the mountain (which is the part you want to visit) is the ancient fortress, which now houses, government offices, museums, two lovely churches, a vast number of souvenir shops, restaurants, ice cream stands, and curiously, gun shops.
Today’s tour was much better than yesterday’s, with a one hour guided tour followed by three full hours of free time, which was more than enough to thoroughly explore the fortress area on top of the mountain. And a word of caution if you’re planning a visit. Just because your motor transportation (in our case a bus) delivers you to the parking area after your exciting ride up the narrow switchbacks to the fortress, doesn’t mean you don’t have to do some climbing on foot. Quite the contrary, my friends. While the San Marino fortress may not rise interminably like Gondor in the Lord of the Rings, it does rise and rise and rise up a series of narrow streets, ultimately ending at an inner castle that will cost you around ten euros to enter.
Should you pay the ten euros and go in? Absolutely. You’ve made it this far, and inside is one of the three towers that stand watch over all of San Marino, and a good portion of Italy too. While the views of the countryside below are excellent from anywhere in the fortress, they’re truly spectacular from the top of the tower. Plus, getting to the top of the tower involves climbing several flights of steps plus one ladder that ends in iron bars for rungs. It was totally fun, and not as scary as it sounds.
Once there was nowhere higher to climb in all of San Marino, we descended and took on our mission of finding and mailing home a postcard from every country we visit. That one turned out to be really easy, as San Marino has long made philately one of its major industries. For decades the country has issued vast quantities of colorful postage stamps, far in excess of the numbers that would be needed in the tiny country. Rather, the stamps are purchased by collectors, who have no intention of actually using them. I have no idea how much money this adds to San Marino’s treasury annually, but it must be a lot. What that meant for us was that the shop where Michele bought a postcard also sold stamps, and there were two mailboxes within easy walking distance.
The other really cool thing we did was to visit the tourist office, and for the modest sum of five euros each we got our passports stamped with San Marino visas. Visas aren’t required to enter San Marino, but the country has turned the option of getting one into another cottage industry. We’ve visited something like 42 countries so far on the cruise, and while many of those countries don’t require visas, enough do that it’s really fun to leaf through our passports and examine them all. Indeed, I think my passport may end up being my favorite souvenir when we get home.
We found a small shop that sold pizza by the slice, which made lunch a quicker affair than if we had patronized one of the many lovely restaurants we had walked past, giving us more time to explore and window shop.
And speaking of shopping, there was one thing that really surprised us, and that was the several shops that sold firearms. Both rifles and handguns were prominently displayed in the shop windows, and I can’t imagine that there’s much demand for them in this tiny, peaceful nation of 34,000 million people. Clearly this weaponry is intended for sale to tourists, and it would be interesting to know what sort of requirements, if any, are attached to their purchase.
It was another hot, sunny day, and my final purchase of the day (after buying another hat, of course) was a cup of salted caramel gelato on the way back to the bus. I dozed a good bit of the way back to the ship in Ravenna, where we arrived a little after 3:00, content after a wonderful visit to the world’s oldest republic. By the way, they aren’t shy about bragging about that either. They may be dependent on Italy for their food, electricity, and pretty much everything else they need, but they pride themselves on their independence, and they are indeed a free, democratic republic. Truly a fascinating place, and one you should consider visiting if you ever have the chance. I loved it.
That’s all from Ravenna, where we’re docked until this evening. Tomorrow we’ll be in Trieste, an Italian city that is unique in many ways. I’ll be back to tell you all about it, so until then, ciao, ciao for now.
Off the bus and on our way in to the mountaintop fortress that is San Marino.
A lot of San Marino looks like this. It’s easy to get lost on the steep, winding, shop lined streets, but that’s fun, because they’re all charming.
Some of the streets are pretty narrow.
There are some beautiful churches in San Marino. This is the Church of St. Francis.
And this is the Basilica of St. Marinus.
Inside the Basilica.
The ceiling of the Basilica is gorgeous.
The portion of San Marino that is perched atop Mt. Titano is one giant fortress.
More of the fortress walls.
Hail to the Chief. This is the big guy’s car.
While the whole place is a fortress, there’s actually an inner castle at the very top, and for ten euros or so, depending on your age, you can enter and climb to the top of the tower that is the highest point in San Marino. Here Michele is climbing a ladder in the tower.
Still climbing. The ladder ends in iron bars.
I climbed it too.
The view from the very top is incredible.
Another view of the lower battlements from the castle.
There are two other towers atop Mt. Titano. This is the view of one of the other two from the castle tower.
Most of what’s visible in the background is Italy, which completely surrounds San Marino.
Old cannons on display in the castle.
There is a charming little chapel inside the castle.
The interior of the chapel.
Back below the castle and along one of the narrow streets. Lots of lovely views.
Lots of shops, where you could buy almost anything.
Another postcard mailed home from country number 42.
No idea who that is, but the statue and building are beautiful.
Did you know that the Tour de France will pass through San Marino soon? Michele is ready.
Some members of the Herbalife professional cycling team were taking a break after climbing Mt. Titano on a training ride. Quite a feat.
On our way out I stopped for some gelato. Great end to a fantastic day in San Marino.
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