San Marino is the world's oldest republic — the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, founded on September 3, 301 AD according to tradition (when the stonemason Marinus of Rab fled persecution under Diocletian and established a community of Christians on Monte Titano), making it 1,720+ years old and the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world. San Marino is also one of the world's smallest nations — 61 km², population 34,000, surrounded entirely by Italy on the Adriatic coast of the Apennine Mountains (the nearest Italian city is Rimini, 24 km away on the Adriatic; the nearest international airport is Rimini Federico Fellini Airport). The historic centre of San Marino (the capital city, also called San Marino — confusingly, the country's name is also its capital city's name) sits on the summit and upper slopes of Monte Titano (739 m) — a dramatic rock formation rising abruptly from the Adriatic plain — and consists of three medieval towers on the mountain's three peaks (the Tre Cime di Monte Titano or Three Towers of San Marino: Guaita, Cesta and Montale, respectively the 11th, 13th and 14th century towers that served as fortresses, prisons and watchtowers; the view from the Guaita tower — the first and most famous — takes in the Adriatic Sea on a clear day from the Apennine summit); the city has medieval walls, the Palazzo Pubblico (the 19th century neo-Gothic seat of government with the changing of the guard ceremony), and the Basilica di San Marino (the 19th century neoclassical basilica containing the relics of Saint Marinus). San Marino is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2008, the historic centre and Monte Titano) and has the peculiar distinction of being a sovereign state where the head of government changes every 6 months (two Capitani Reggenti serve co-equal terms of exactly 181 days).
The Guaita (Prima Torre — First Tower, 11th century, the oldest and most famous of San Marino's three towers; served as a fortress, a prison, and a watchtower for 1,000 years; the upper and lower fortifications connected by the Passo delle Streghe — the Witches' Walk, a narrow path between the two sections of the walls) is the defining San Marino monument — the view from the tower battlements encompasses the Adriatic Sea coast (visible on clear days, 24 km east), the Apennine mountain range, Rimini and the Italian Adriatic plain; the interior has a small museum of medieval arms and the prison cells where enemies of the republic were held.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Cesta (Seconda Torre — Second Tower, 13th century, the highest point of Monte Titano at 756 m, on the southernmost of the three peaks — connected to the Guaita by the Passo delle Streghe walkway along the ridgeline; inside the tower is the Museo delle Armi Antiche — the Museum of Ancient Weapons, with a comprehensive collection of medieval and Renaissance weapons, armour, crossbows and firearms); the view from the Cesta encompasses the opposite side of Monte Titano from the Guaita — the San Marino hinterland, the Apennine foothills and the Republic's nine municipalities spread across the narrow territory.
The Palazzo Pubblico (the Public Palace, 1894, neo-Gothic — the seat of government of the world's oldest republic: the Grand and General Council (parliament), the Captains Regent (the two co-equal heads of state, elected every 6 months by the Council, who must be residents of different municipalities and cannot be related, and who cannot be immediately re-elected after their term — the oldest continuing constitutional arrangement in the world, derived from the Roman consulate); the Changing of the Guard ceremony (at 9am in summer, the Sammarinese Guardia di Rocca in historical period uniform conducts the change with music) is the most distinctive governmental ceremony of any microstate.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe medieval walls of San Marino (the 2.4 km ring of walls around the historic centre of the capital, mostly dating from the 14th-15th centuries with some sections from the 11th century; the walls follow the natural contours of Monte Titano's upper slopes; the Passo delle Streghe — the pedestrian walkway along the outer wall between Guaita and Cesta — is the most dramatic city walk in any Italian-context state) and the view of the Montale (the Third Tower, 14th century, the smallest and most remote tower on the northernmost peak of Monte Titano; the only tower not open to visitors; it served as a prison; the tower is visible from the walls but requires separate permission to approach closely).
San Marino has its own distinct cuisine within the Italian regional tradition — nidi di rondine (swallow's nests: the most famous San Marino dish — rolled pasta sheets stuffed with smoked ham, cheese and beef, baked with béchamel; a Sammarinese home dish that appears on every local restaurant menu), torta tre monti (the Three Mountains Cake — a wafer and hazelnut cream multi-layer cake in the shape of three stacked tiers representing the three towers, dusted with chocolate; the iconic edible souvenir of San Marino), and the local Sangiovese-based wines from the Titano DOC (a micro-appellation entirely within San Marino, one of the smallest wine appellations in the world).
Rimini (24 km east of San Marino on the Adriatic coast — the town where Federico Fellini was born in 1920 and whose seaside culture, Catholic processions, provincial sensibility and decadent energy provided the raw material for virtually all his films: Amarcord, I Vitelloni, La Dolce Vita's spiritual geography) has the Museo Fellini (in the Grand Hotel where Federico was a regular — the actual hotel that appears in his films) and the Arco di Augusto (the Arch of Augustus, 27 BC — the oldest Roman arch still standing in northern Italy, built to mark the terminus of the Via Flaminia from Rome to the Adriatic; the point where Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon 50 km north).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Rimini Adriatic beach (the longest sandy beach in Italy — 15 km of continuous beach with 1,000+ registered beach establishments (stabilimenti balneari) with their rows of identical sun beds and parasols, the beach bar culture, the August heat, the families from Bologna and Milan who have holidayed here since the 1960s; the beach is the primary reason 15 million Italians visit Rimini each year; the Rimiera Romagnola is Italy's democratically accessible mass beach culture at its most characteristically Italian); the piadina romagnola (the flatbread of Romagna, grilled on a terracotta teglia, filled with prosciutto, squacquerone cheese and rocket — the definitive Romagnola street food) from the beachside piadinerie.
The Tempio Malatestiano (the Malatesta Temple, Rimini — the church of San Francesco, 1450-1468, remodelled by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta using the design of Leon Battista Alberti to create the most complete example of Early Renaissance humanist architecture in Italy; the building was intended to be a personal mausoleum for Sigismondo and his court scholars — to the fury of Pope Pius II who called it a "temple of devil-worshippers" because it contained more humanist and pagan content than Christian iconography; inside: the chapels of the humanist scholars, the elephant motif repeated throughout (Malatesta's emblem), and Piero della Francesca's portrait fresco of Sigismondo).
The return journey from Rimini to San Marino (the road climbs 24 km from sea level to 739 m — the most dramatic ascent from the Adriatic plain in the Apennines; the view looking back across the flat Italian coast with the Adriatic shimmering at dusk is one of the finest panoramas in the Emilia-Romagna region); San Marino's three towers lit at night (floodlit May-September, 10pm-midnight) against the dark sky are the most dramatic night sight of any Italian-context micro-territory; the town is very quiet after 7pm when the day-trippers leave.
The Museo di Stato (the State Museum of San Marino, in the historic Palazzo Pergami Belluzzi in the historic centre) has the most comprehensive collection of artefacts documenting the history of the world's oldest republic — the pre-Roman Iron Age settlements of Monte Titano, the Roman period finds, the medieval fortification history, the numismatic collection of Sammarinese coins (San Marino has minted its own coins since the 13th century; now produces Euro coins as part of the Vatican/San Marino/Monaco group of non-EU microstates that use the Euro and issue their own commemorative coins — Sammarinese euros are extremely valuable to collectors), and the geological collection of Monte Titano.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Ufficio Filatelico e Numismatico (the Philatelic and Numismatic Office of San Marino) and the Museo Filatelico e Numismatico are the global centres for San Marino stamps and coins — San Marino has issued postage stamps since 1877 (the first non-Italian state to issue its own stamps in the Italian context); the stamps are disproportionately valuable and extensively collected worldwide (partly due to the mystique of the world's oldest republic and partly due to San Marino's history of issuing artististically distinguished stamps); the collection in the museum includes the complete philatelic history from 1877 to present.
Borgo Maggiore (the second municipality of San Marino, 350 m below the historic capital on the slope of Monte Titano — connected to the capital by a cable car/funivia that has operated since 1959; the Thursday market in the main square of Borgo Maggiore is the largest weekly market in San Marino, with Italian produce, the San Marino discount shopping (duty-free status makes tobacco, alcohol, electronics and luxury goods significantly cheaper than Italy — the main draw for Italian day-trippers from Rimini and the surrounding region), and the local Sangiovese wine producers who set up stands on market day.
The Basilica di San Marino (the Neoclassical basilica, 1836, on the Piazzetta del Titano in the historic capital — built on the site of the original church founded by Saint Marinus in the 4th century; the basilica contains the relics of Saint Marinus (Marinus of Rab, the Dalmatian stonemason who according to tradition founded the republic on September 3, 301 AD to escape Diocletian's persecution of Christians — the oldest continuous political tradition in the world with a documented foundation date); the adjacent Piazzale Domus Plebis with the view across the Italian plain and the Adriatic is the finest viewpoint in the capital.