San Marino

Another country ticked off. We nearly didn’t do this small republic, I’d been here before and I didn’t remember it being anything worth seeing. How glad I was that we did. The republic is 24 square miles, population of approx. 33,500 . It is among one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP (per capita), with no national debt and a budget surplus and it shows.

We stopped in a car park (€0) just down from the gondola that takes you up to the old town. The car park had clean water, grey and black water disposal and clean toilets. It had stunning views over down over the valley to the hills beyond and at night lots of fireflies. More importantly it didn’t have loud and noisy cars/motorbikes nor rubbish. After some bits of Italy it was a dream come true.

San Marino old town is an hill top town with small lanes of tourist tack & gun shops, traffic is precluded from these streets and being able to walk along the streets without having to step into door ways just further increased my view I was in dream land. We walked to the 3 towers the town is famous for but didn’t pay to go in them.

The next day we did a beautiful cycle to Montecopiolo. The ride was a bit of a roller coaster and many of the gradients were over 20% but brilliant views. It was obvious when you crossed the boarder to Italy as the ride went from nice and smooth to being a bone shaker.

We also did a short walk to the cave where St Marinus lived when he first escaped from Italy before he founded San Marino.