San Marino

Visited: June 2013

Duration of visit: 1 day

Capital city: San Marino

Population: 33.000 (2013)

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

• The Guaita fortress on top of Monte Titano, at 750 meters above sea level, offers unique century-old architecture and excellent panorama of the tiny state.
• Palazzo Pubblico – the town hall of the City of San Marino as well as its official Government Building, where the official ceremonies of the Republic are held.
• Piazza della Liberta – glorious medieval charm architecture; the square is surrounded by the most important governmental buildings, restaurants and in the center fountain with sumptuous Statue of Liberty of San Marino is located.
• The smallest country by population to have won an Olympic medal at Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in 2020.
• The world’s oldest sovereign state, from the fourth century.

I visited the world’s oldest sovereign state, dating from the fourth century AD, during summer holidays on the Italian coast.

San Marino, surrounded completely by Italy, with an area of only 61 square kilometers and 33,000 inhabitants, portraits an idyllic microstate with its own government and laws.

On the top of the long range, with the view far beyond the country borders, three fortresses are nestled.

I visited San Marino on a family trip to the Adriatic coast in the Northern Italy. The fifth-smallest country in the world actually seems as part of Italy: the same language, architecture, food, currency and customs. Only the island nations of Tuvalu, Nauru, city-states Monaco and Vatican are smaller in territory than San Marino.

San Marino was officially consolidated as a political entity in the late 1200s and it has never lost its territory through various invasions. The country opened a paid postal service to all residents in 1607, remained neutral during World War II and granted citizenship to the most famous admirer Abraham Lincoln.

San Marino is the less visited country in Europe and, to be honest, spending a few hours walking around, is quite enough to see the most important historical landmarks.

It has a long record of participating on the Olympics since 1960. Finally, at Tokyo 2020 summer Olympic games, San Marino athletes won 3 medals (two in shooting and one in wrestling), this way becoming the smallest country by population to have won an Olympic medal.

I couldn’t notice any particular difference between Italy and San Marino, besides official symbols – flags, colors, car plates, police). Language, food, habits, traditions are totally comparable. There is a border between two countries, but no real control or checkpoints for cars or people are implemented.

Eight of the nine municipalities have little of interest, while the capital, with the beautiful medieval castle at the top of the hill is the place where all the tourists go.

Instead of tourist attractions, I rather remember torta tre monti, a lovely dessert that is considered to be the national dessert of San Marino. Five layers of fragrant round wafers filled with cocoa cream, coffee and hazelnuts, finished with an external crown of dark chocolate.