A Life in Wanderlust

When planning my holiday last summer, I was set on visiting Florence, Italy. After years of learning about the Medici family and seeing the amazing photos of the Cathedral, I decided the time had finally come to tick this city off of my bucket list. But, as with any of my holidays, I was not content on ticking off one city, or even country. When looking into where I could do day trips to, the usual cities came up; Sienna, Pisa, Bologna, and then one came up that piqued my interest, San Marino.

Like most people reading this, I had never considered visiting this tiny country, I’d barely even heard of it before! However, after some research I realised that I could do this as a day trip in my 2 week itinerary of Italy. I took the plunge and was not disappointed.

San Marino, also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, is the fifth smallest country in the world. It is a quirky country, said to be one of the oldest republics in the world and it is amazing that this tiny microstate has survived, almost as amazing as the fact it is a landlocked country but you can see the sea!

I visited the capital, San Marino City. It is a beautiful picturesque old town with it’s iconic feature being towers. Below are my list of things to do in the city, how to get there and any other practical details you need to know to plan your own visit to this much overlooked country!

How to get there?

So, first things first, how do you get to this micro state. Well, it is located within the country of Italy. It does not have it’s own train station and so the only way to get there is by driving.

Now if like me you have no desire to hire a car and drive on the wrong side of the road, then Rimini is where you need to get to to be able to access San Marino. Most cities in Italy have trains that will run to Rimini, if you are flying in then the closest airport is Bologna and from there it is an easy train to Rimini, Italy. Trains from Bologna go very regularly, almost every 15 minutes, but, there is only one fast train per hour. This fast train will take 1 hour and cost around £20 (I recommend booking on an app called Trainline, look out for my blogpost on the best apps to have when travelling around Europe!) The slower train will take you 2 hours and cost around £10. This is really your call which train you get. For me, I was wanting to maximise my visit as much as possible as I was only staying there one night so I paid for the 1 hour train. On the way back timings did not work out so well and I had to get out at a station to wait for a connecting train. In the heat of summer, it wasn’t the worst thing but I was exhausted and it was 38 degrees Celsius, just over 100 in Fahrenheit, which was tough on my pale English skin!

Once in Rimini, this is where things went downhill for me. I headed out of the main station towards the kiosks advertising bus tickets, only to get closer and realise that they had big signs stating they did not sell tickets to San Marino. Had I not done my research beforehand, I would have panicked and been very confused. However, after reading up on how to get to San Marino, one random blog told me to head to the newsagents shop next to Burger King, which is across the road from Rimini train station. Once there, all the staff seemed to speak English and it was pretty straight forward. However, it was not so clear where the bus stops are and so I ended up walking in the midday heat all the way from the station to the beach thinking that was the only stop for the San Marino bus. I found out on my way back that it wasn’t!

So once you have located the bus stops, I would still recommend walking all the way to the beach to get on the bus at the first stop as the bus gets very busy and many people had to stand the whole way. The bus costs 6 euros one way and I wouldn’t count on the bus drivers being very helpful!

What to visit once you get there?

So you may be thinking, if it is this much hassle to get there and you said it was not the nicest of service along the way, why should I visit? Well, I had googled a bit in advance and knew about the city being high up on a hill top with many towers which used to protect it. What I was not prepared for were the stunning views from up there.

I climbed 2 of the 3 towers (the last tower you couldn’t climb) and while it was a really hot day (don’t forget that the higher up in altitude you go the less oxygen and therefore the easier you can burn!) it was well worth it. We paid one fee for entry to all the main museums in the city; which included the towers. I would recommend an hour for climbing them (ignoring the walking time between the two). This is because the views are so picturesque that you’ll not want to climb back down.

Now when I say climb, some of the top tiers of the towers are only accessed by a very stable but wooden ladder-esque staircase. Absolutely fine if, like me, you don’t have a fear of heights. However, not fine if, like me, you are wearing a dress/skirt. Everyone can see your arse going up, made only more prominent in my case by my choice of underwear!

Top things to do in San Marino City:

1. Climb the towers
2. Tour the parliament building (it’s beautiful!)
3. Head to the tourist information centre to pay for a stamp in your passport
4. Find a viewpoint and marvel at being in a landlocked country while being able to see the sea
5. Just wander around. This gorgeous walled city is worth a wander.

So if after all of this, you still aren’t convinced, I’ll leave you with some more photos to convince you!