The most serene republic of San Marino is a romantic fairytale land...that really exists! From San Marino's lamp-lit castle ramparts, you can watch the sunset over the distant Apennine mountains and then watch the moon rise over the Adriatic Sea.
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| Sunset Over The Apennines |
San Marino is one of my favourite places in all of "non-Italy". I say non-Italy because San Marino is a separate republic; a microstate within Italy (kind of like the Vatican) and one of the oldest republics in the world. TIP: San Marino's main capital city is also called San Marino, which can be confusing if you are programming a GPS. Named after its Patron Saint, St Marinus, who established a hermitage at the summit of Mount Titano in 301 C.E., San Marino and Mount Titano are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The last time I visited San Marino was in 2013, and I was so excited to return to the small capital and see it all lit up in the evening light.
Sunset was at 4:44 pm in San Marino. With clear skies and a full moon, all the stars seemed to be aligning to be able to get some great pictures from the top of Mount Titano that evening.
The drive up to the top of San Marino is a thrilling hairpin turn road that offers views of the valley below and the sea off in the distance. Last time I was here I took a fun ride up the funicular to the top of San Marino, rather than pay for expensive all-day parking. This time I was only visiting for a few hours, and I wanted to zoom to the top of Mt. Titano to catch the sunset magic with my travel partner.
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| Via Piana Means "Flat Street"😵 |
TIP: For parking at the top of San Marino, follow the main road ALL the way to the end (it turns into Via JF Kennedy) and there will be a huge pay parking lot just beyond a set of stone arches.
This is the closest you can park to the iconic castles and the cliffside promenade that connects them. Over Christmas holidays this parking lot is closed because it is the location of the Christmas Snow Village, but there was lots of street parking available. This is the bliss of travelling in the off-season!
The three historical towers of San Marino perch impossibly on the very edge of Mount Titano's cliff face, with a stomach-clenching drop of 738 meters to the valley below...
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| Montale |
Racing to catch the setting sun, I took a shortcut from the street and literally ran uphill through a forest of oak, chestnut and laburnum trees to San Marino's third tower-Montale. I was lucky to catch the sun just as it slunk behind the smokey-blue coloured mountains. Spectacular. The floodlights suddenly came on, dramatically lighting up the three iconic fortresses of San Marino: Montale, Cesta and the most famous; Guatia. From the tower of Montale, I strolled along the stone path through the forest, to the middle tower called Cesta.
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| The Original Fortress Walls |
Cesta is the middle peak of San Marino and the highest point. The tower holds San Marino's museum, displaying over 1500 weapons from the middle ages to modern times. Cesta was built on top of a Roman Fort, so I consider this spot the end of my trip along the "Via Flaminia" which I followed from Rome, through Umbria and the Apennine mountains to the seaside city of Rimini. From the tower of Cesta, you can see the great wall that is part of the original city wall that enclosed San Marino, protecting this free republic since the Middle Ages. The wall had a different purpose now. A million twinkling white lights strung across the top of the wall like a fairy path lead tourists along the promenade flanked by cafes and souvenir shops to the castle: Guaita.
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| The Cliffside Promenade |
Alone on the very cold and windy ramparts of Guaita, you can really sense the amount of determination this proud little republic needed to stay independent for hundreds of years. The people of San Marino are called "Sammarinese" and they have a distinctly separate culture of food and wine, their own University, a Sammarinese language (which is a form of the Emilia-Romagnolo dialect) and its own traditional folk music. For a peek at the traditional Sammarinese folk music check out the video at the very end of this post.
I could hear Christmas carols floating up to the ramparts from far down below, it was the Christmas village pumping out Bony M tunes for all the little skaters and tobogganers that were having a great time in the fresh mountain air. This would be a good time to go check out the action and see if I could find some mulled wine to warm up.
San Marino's skating rink was the biggest I have seen so far on my Italian Christmas travels through Umbria. There was also "snow" tubing on the red runway beside the skating rink. I think every kid in town was there that night living out their winter fantasy, it made me kind of homesick for Canada. Sadly there was no mulled wine here for my winter fantasy. Onward.
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| Parking Lot Turned Into The Skating Rink |
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| Quiet Streets Of San Marino |
Questing forth for the elusive mulled wine, I came across another Christmas market selling traditional Sammarinese sweets like Christmas cakes, candies, nuts as wells as cheeses, jams, cured meats and delicious..."Vin Brulé" which is Italian mulled wine! Vin Brulé is hot red wine, sweetened a bit and spiced with cloves, allspice, cinnamon and orange peel. Best €2 I spent all day!
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| Piazza Della Liberta |
Warmed up with a spiced wine buzz, there was another quest I was on that night. When I was in San Marino in 2013 I came across a shop that sold intricate metal masks that looked like lace. I thought about those masks on and off for four years and always regretted not purchasing one; I didn't even know the name of the store. Life brought me back to San Marino and to the very same street of the mask shop, and the shop was OPEN! La Vetrina del Titano is a shop that specializes in Venetian style masks and jewellery. The kind owner Manuela helped me pick out two beautiful masks, one for myself the other for my dear Italian friend Giulia as a thank you gift. The Universe gave me a second chance to grab these masks and I promised to never, EVER ignore the "call of the Universe" to buy something special when travelling!
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| Beautiful Christmas Light Art |
Coming out of the shop, my travel partner caught two musicians that were wandering through the streets dressed as Sammarinese shepherds playing the accordion and a rare Italian folk instrument called a '"zampogna". The zampogna is a bagpipe type instrument that was brought to this area from Ancient Greece via southern Italy. This instrument was common in folk music but fell out of favour in the 18th century and is now usually only associated with Christmas carols. If you want to see a rare zampogna in action, check out the video at the bottom of the blog entry.
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| Full Moon Over The Adriatic |
Time was moving at an alarmingly rapid pace and it was almost time to meet Giulia after work. I wanted to see if we could catch the full moon rising, so I hunted for an open space like a piazza or a terrace to get a clear vantage point. The City Hall in Piazza della Libertà is a picturesque little square on a terrace overlooking the mountains in the distance. The problem was the mountains faced west where I had captured the sunset earlier, so that meant I had to go to the other side of San Marino that faced East. Luckily, because I was on a mountain peak, the other side of San Marino was only a 5-minute walk beyond the Piazza della Libertà towards the funicular station.
Rounding the corner to the funicular station, I stopped dead in my tracks. The scene I looked out at from the mountaintop terrace was as delicious and intoxicating as the Vin Brulè! The full moon was shining down upon the Adriatic; her silver reflection on the sea so bright, that it looked like the water was being lit from beneath. It didn't even register to my eyes as being "real" at first; like I was looking at a painting. Staring out at the moonlit scene was one of the most romantic moments of my trip.
That vista was also the most satisfying end to my night in "the most serene republic" of San Marino.
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