San Marino is only one of three countries in the world surrounded entirely by another country; the others being the Vatican City and Lesotho. At 64 square miles, it is the third smallest country in Europe behind Vatican (again!!) and Monaco however, it does hold the record of being the oldest republic in the world. To cap this off they are 209thin the FIFA soccer world standings just below the British Virgin Islands and above Anguilla!! Bearing in mind there are only 210 nations listed in the FIFA rankings, it doesnt take a genius to work out that the only way is up for the men in sky blue and white. And, thats where we went today; up 657m (or 209 places to the top – in football speak!!) above sea level to visit this tiny nation.
There are only six buses per day to San Marino starting at 07:45. We took the next bus at 09:37 that left opposite the central railway station in Rimini. The journey took approximately one hour. The first 30 minutes or so were uneventful, mainly flat and semi industrial passing several retail parks. That is until we merged with a trunk road (the S752)
and suddenly a mammoth Massif loomed in to view. A rock lacking in vegetation; a monolith on which the sun made silhouettes of several turrets and fortifications atop of this medieval strong hold. I was of the impression that San Marino, the country, was tucked away in the hills of the Apennines but only the capital, San Marino City is perched overlooking the rest of the realm. In fact, the lowest point of San Marino is only 55m above sea level!! After our escapade in the Andes of Peru, I dont think well be reaching for the oxygen on this trip. In fact, some of the areas of Lima, which is a city at sea level, were higher than the lowest point of San Marino!! The bus made several stops in San Marino where some tourists and back packers alighted. We obviously hadnt done our research as we had no idea where they were heading for. One of these who alighted early was a young lad who had overheard Roisin and I talking at the bus stop. He was a solo traveller and had been touring around Italy by train. He recognised my accent and I his. We lived
The bus started its ascent. It continued to snake its way up the mountain. For Roisin, the experience near death as although the bus drove perilously close to the edge, for the most part, a tree line blocked out the sheer drop down. Not that Rosin noticed as she had her head buried in candy crush for the duration missing the beautiful vista of The switch backs in the road were sharp as at one point the driver had to conduct a three point turn to continue, stopping the traffic as he did so!! This did nothing for Roisins irrational fear of narrow mountain passes. Roisin continued muttering to herself. Although we all learned Our Father in primary school, I was surprised Roisin knew all the words to Hail Mary!!! After a long twenty minutes, the road finally levelled out and we pulled into a coach park.
Congratulations to Roisin, Whilst this was my 85th country (not including another 38 dependencies and overseas territories), this was amazingly Roisins 80th country in only 18 years.
We had no idea where the town was so we followed the rest of the passengers. Some took a staircase to the next level whilst a few waited for an elevator. We took the latter option. Again, people understood social distancing and rather than cram in to the elevator, respected their fellow travellers allowing small groups or individuals up at any one time. We only had to wait a few minutes before we had reached street level.
We entered the cobble streets of the town through the St Francis Gate which resembled a keep of a with coat of arms and the San Marino flag flying proudly above.
