Before Italy: San Marino, the oldest and smallest republic in the world

A recent 9-night trip grew from a friend pointing out that the only European country I hadn’t visited was San Marino, a tiny republic surrounded by Italy. On a lark, I started researching San Marino and quickly decided (1) it looked beautiful, intriguing and merited an overnight stay, and (2) it was an easy drive from Bologna, a city I wanted to visit and a short flight from our home in Paris. My plans grew from there. I’ve been to Italy many times, visited lots of towns and cities in many regions, but I’d yet to stay in one of the iconic conical houses known as trulli (singular trullo) in Puglia, a region in the “heel” of Italy. Why not add that to this trip? A little more research revealed a direct high-speed Frecciarossa train from Bologna in the north to Bari in Puglia where we could rent a car. I confirmed there were direct flights from Bari back to Paris and learned that the nearby town of Alberobello was known for its beauty and had the largest concentration of trulli in Puglia. It sounded like the perfect base to explore Puglia. I quickly finalized our trip.

Our 7:45am Air France flight from CDG to Bologna took a mere 1h40. It was a disgustingly early start to the day, but that meant we were in a Locauto* rent car and heading to San Marino by 10am. The route between the Bologna airport and San Marino was unremarkable for the most part and devolved into a stretch dotted with derelict commercial buildings before we got to the pretty parts. Things started looking up with our first glimpse of fortified towers on a cliff far above a roundabout.

Soon, we were navigating hairpin turns up to the Città (city) of San Marino, the capital of the Republic of San Marino. Our B&B host texted me that we should drive as far as possible and try to park in public Lot 6 near a gate to the old town not far from our lodging. Arriving at lunchtime, we found the parking lot full, but a very short wait later, we lucked into snagging a spot when another car left the lot. This turned out to be luckier than we at first realized when we saw how many daytrippers walked the cobbled streets of the old town. We opted to leave our luggage in the car and head to lunch, arranging to check-in afterwards.

The October day was cool, so we chose to sit inside Domus, a pretty lunch spot, next to a window offering a sweeping view of the valley below. San Marino offers lots of spectacular views from its mountaintop perch. We ordered the simple local specialty, piadina, flatbread filled with dried ham, cheese, greens and/or any number of other tasty things. A local craft beer for David and a glass of San Marino wine for me rounded out our lunch.

Piadina lunch…and that view!

Our B&B turned out to be a delight. Although B&B Old Town San Marino has three guest rooms, there is only one bathroom in a common living area, so they only rent to one group at a time. This meant that David and I had the residential area of this beautiful 2nd floor home to ourselves. We could shut the door to the living/dining/kitchen area and wander about the back space in the plush robes provided in total privacy. Our bedroom (“Pearl”) was charmingly decorated in antiques with windows on two sides, one with a balcony overlooking Via Salita alla Rocca, the main pedestrian street we’d come in on from parking Lot 6. From the balcony and even laying in bed, we could view the valley beyond through a space between two buildings on the opposite side of the street.

B&B Old Town San Marino

Despite the central location, our room was calm during the day and absolutely quiet at night. We enjoyed an included breakfast of cappuccino, an omelet, yogurt, fresh fruit and warm apple pastry the next day and an enthusiastic greeting from our host’s apricot poodle made my morning.

The charm of San Marino lies first in wandering the pretty streets, admiring the views, browsing the shops and sampling the food and drink.

Hiking to two of the city’s iconic three towers is de rigeur, although Tower One (Guaita) was undergoing renovations when we were there. Guaita was originally built in the 11th century and reached its current form in the 15th century. The walk up to 13th century Tower Two (Cesta) proved other-worldly as clouds swept across the mountaintop. Billows of mist rolled down the cobbled path towards us. From a clifftop overlook, the ebb and flow of clouds alternately obscured and revealed a view of Guaita and the valley and distant sea beyond.

Cesta houses an interesting Museum of Ancient Weapons and great views of Guaita and the smaller 14th century third tower (Montale) from its windows and terraces.

For €11 apiece, we opted to buy the city museum pass at the second tower. In addition to the ancient weapons museum, this pass allowed us to visit the Palazzo Pubblico and the State Museum. Of the two, the Palazzo Pubblico was a favorite. It doesn’t take long to visit, but the building is lovely and it’s interesting to see the seat of government of this oldest of republics. San Marino has a very interesting government. Its one legislative body, the Great and General Council, consists of 60 members serving 5-year terms. Every six months, two co-equal heads of state called the Captains Regent are elected. The practice of frequently-elected dual heads of state is derived directly from the customs of the Roman Republic. The Council is a modern equivalent of the Roman Senate, while the Captains Regent are like consuls of ancient Rome. The first Captains Regent were chosen in 1243 and the practice has continued ever since!

Piazza della Libertà and the Palazzo Pubblico
Hall of the Great and General Council inside Palazzo Pubblico

The National Museum is also worth a visit, but the allure of just wandering those streets enticed us back outside. There were other museums included in the museum pass… but we passed. 🙂 While local entrepreneurs have provided other diversions in the form of some kitschy private “museums” (curiosities, torture, vampires), we had no interest in those.

Being in San Marino in the evening is magical. The daytrippers disappear and the cobbled streets seem to slip back in time. I hadn’t been sure what to expect regarding dinner on this end-of-season night so I booked ahead with TheFork.fr, a site I use all the time in Paris. I wouldn’t normally choose a hotel restaurant, but Ristorante L’Arengo was available and highly-rated so I went with it. First appearances–a pretty standard, but nice hotel restaurant–didn’t enthuse me, but the welcome was warm and the dinner turned out to be really excellent and surprisingly cheap when we ordered their prix fixe dinner (€82 for an interesting 3-course dinner plus bottled water and a bottle of local wine). The waitress spoke French better than English, so we stuck to French for the evening. The sommelier was helpful and an older waiter who came over to offer us comped digestifs was utterly charming. The evening continued happily with a ramble through the quiet, moonlit streets and mostly-empty plazas. We came upon a talented German tourist playing his own composition on a public piano in a deserted open gallery of the old Cassa di Risparmio bank. He liked that we wanted to video him and asked us to video him on his phone as well.

All in all, we found San Marino to be well worth an overnight visit. It’s a fairy-tale like place with surprisingly reasonable prices for dining and other purchases. I’d paid our B&B host a reduced price for the overnight parking (available to guests staying in San Marino’s old town) which allowed us to remain in Lot 6 until midnight of our second day although we left San Marino just after lunch. Our host provided the local authorities with our license plate number which was scanned as we left the parking lot causing the boom to raise automatically. There are quite a few public parking lots along the road leading to the town of San Marino, but some of them would require long uphill walks to the old town. There’s also a cable car running from Borgo Maggiore below up to the town of San Marino. Given our early arrival and our leisurely departure the next day, we felt a single night in San Marino provided adequate time. We’re glad we stayed overnight, but for those with limited time, a daytrip would still be worth it.

*We used Locauto twice on this trip, from the Bologna airport and from Bari Centrale train station. We were happy with them both times. The cars were new, pick-up and drop-off were quick and conveniently located, prices were the best I found, and there’s no deposit hold beyond a 1 euro cent transaction to save credit card details.

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