There’s No Flat Land in San Marino Folks!

Zagan the motorhome’s on a wonk folks. You need to take a run up to get into the kitchen. Why? We’re in San Marino, where there is no naturally flat land in the whole country; everywhere’s on a wonk. Our kipping spot for the night is one of the official motohome sostas, the one within a few minutes reach of the old town (N43.93536, E12.44392). It’s €8 a day here, which we opted to pay as the other freebie sosta was eerily devoid of life, perhaps as the cable car’s not in operation at the mo! We needed to leave Charlie in the van as he’s hobbling about after his stick-chasing shenanigans in Rimini, and just didn’t have a good feeling, so paid up.

Zagan looking west to the Apennines, in one of the official motorhome sostas in San Marino

Rimini, on first inspection, firmly lodged itself high on my list of ‘places ruined by mass tourism, let’s get out of here’. On our third night in the place we found ourselves sat in a cool bar supping drinks in the old town area, surrounded by Italians all out to live the sweet life, with a couple of wooden platters of tapas-type nosh laid out before us. Back at the van we tucked into salted roast pork, which Ju bought in a huge all-town market earlier, the old chap carving off slithers with careful, deliberate movements, like a glass-blower fashioning a jug. Rimini grew on me!

The Italians have officially declared winter to be over with a massive bonfire (which we missed, but the smoke permeated the whole town). The beach bars were starting to open; Rimini was coming alive. The town’s website reported a house being confiscated, with a photo of scanty-clad ladies covering their faces as they left in a hurry. Another raid had recovered a boat load of cocaine. Yup, Rimini was firing up. Time to leave, before we became too attached!

The road to San Marino

The run into San Marino from Rimini’s an easy one, dual carriageway most of the way. Zagan found himself in first gear a couple of times once we made it to the hilly business end, once going downhill to engine-brake us out of the other sosta, and once crawling uphill. It’s easy to get a motorhome up here though, you don’t need one of these bad boys to made the ascent:

Yes, I am jealous! For some reason off-road motorhomes always seem to be German, perhaps they’re more adventurous than the rest of us?

San Marino shouldn’t really exist. But it does, which makes it a very odd place, a city-state in a land where all the city states are long gone. Sat surrounded by Italy, it’s not in the Eurozone but uses the Euro, it has two concurrent heads of state chosen from opposing political parties in hommage to the old Roman ways, it has its own army, it has more vehicles than people, and it’s one of the richest countries in the world. Oh, and it once scored a world cup goal against England in about 3 seconds flat, remember that? It’s remained autonomous as much by luck as by judgement over the years. When the modern Italian national state was formed 150 years back, merging all but the Vatican and here into a single state, it retained independence as it had supported the risorgimento movement.

San Marino!

During the last war San Marino opted to stay true to its founding principles of freedom and peace, and declared neutrality. Can you imagine it? The entire Italian country surrounded it at war and it chose to have no part in it? Good for them. As we stood on the ramparts looking east towards Rimini, I tried to imagine what it must have been like to have such a vantage point as the Allied air forces bombed the place to dust. The Royal Air Force did bomb here once, incorrectly thinking Germany had overrun the place, killing 35 people and presumably doing rather a lot of damage, which Britain later paid a whole £80,000 in reparations.

San Marino’s seat of government and statue of liberty

On a warm spring day in March, the city’s very pleasant to wander, and the views east out to the Adriatic and west over the mountains towards Tuscany, are a pure joy. Everyone still speaks Italian, but it’s clear this isn’t Italy. The buildings and pathways are all immaculate, in direct contrast to the sea of Italy which surrounds us. Shops either sell high-end luxury goods, or tat, with not much in between (I’m counting BB guns, knock-off perfume and ‘I love San Marino’ condoms as tat).

Ju bought a bottle of wine and got a San Marino €1 in the change, saving us from having to buy a €1 coin. Nope, I’ve no idea how much they were charging for them!

Hitler beer anyone?

Here’s your AK47 son, now don’t say I never buy you anything

Rip-off perfume at €5 a pop folks

Errmmmmm

Mum, if you’re reading this, we both know this is the kind of plastic rubbish which you’d have in your luggage on t’bus home!

We asked each other what we thought of San Marino earlier on. I couldn’t think of an answer, but fortunately for me Charlie’s face on the photo below sums up my feelings about the place.

What’s San Marino like? Errrrmmmmm?

I guess if you’ve been to Carcassonne or Mont Saint Michel, you’ll have an idea what’s going on in my noggin.

San Marino

What other news in Team Zagan? Croatia is back on the agenda, via a ferry from Ancona. Hopefully the ferries will start to allow camping on board again on 1 April, so we’ll be able to stay with Charlie on the crossing. Ju’s emailed the ferry company to ask. If they’re up for it, we’ll kick our heels for a couple of weeks in the Marche area of Italy, then head for the calm, blue waters of Hrvatska. If not, we’ll head north, perhaps via Venice. Anyway, a few more piccies from San Marino guys…

Coolest lolly pop man in the West

Basilica del Santo

It’s Palm Sunday today. No palms around here, so the devout carry olive branches instead

Cat-dog harmony in San Marino. Wait a minute!

Cheers, Jay