San Marino

By tradition, San Marino was founded in 301 AD by Marinus, a Christian stonemason from the Adriatic island of Rab who fled persecution and formed a monastic community on Monte Titano. That community grew into a commune in the Middle Ages, had its independence recognised by the Papacy in 1631, and survived a brief occupation by a cardinal in 1739.

In 1849 San Marino sheltered Giuseppe Garibaldi as he fled Austrian troops, and Garibaldi in turn made sure that a unified Italy would respect the little republic's independence; a treaty of friendship with Italy dates from 1862 and has been renewed ever since. San Marino stayed neutral in both world wars, was accidentally bombed and briefly occupied in 1944, and sheltered around 100,000 refugees — three times its population — during the Italian campaign.

In 1945 San Marino elected the world's first democratically chosen communist-led government, which held power until 1957. A later reputation as a tax haven and banking-secrecy centre brought friction with Italy and international scrutiny, resolved through transparency agreements that shrank the financial sector. The country now lives largely on tourism, collectible coins and stamps, light industry, and finance, and is negotiating an association agreement with the EU.

San Marino's culture is essentially that of the surrounding Romagna and Marche, Italian in language, food, and Catholic faith, with a strong civic identity built on the pride of unbroken independence. Its distinctive institution is the pair of Captains Regent, heads of state elected for six-month terms — a system running continuously since the thirteenth century — installed twice a year in a ceremony of medieval pageantry.

Crossbow companies, flag-throwers, and costumed processions feature at the national festivals, and the country fields its own Olympic and football teams, issues its own passports and vehicle plates, and gives its name to a MotoGP round raced just over the border in Italy. Same-sex civil unions were recognised in 2018, and abortion was legalised by referendum only in 2021.

Most Sammarinese live not in the hilltop historic city, which is given over to tourism, but in the larger settlements below — Serravalle, Borgo Maggiore, Dogana — which run into the Italian conurbation around Rimini with no visible border. Incomes are high and unemployment low, and daily life, work, shopping, and schooling are closely interwoven with Italy's.

The economy leans heavily on the two million or so visitors a year, most of them day-trippers from the Adriatic beaches, along with ceramics, electronics, and clothing manufacturing, wine, and the sale of coins and stamps to collectors. The banking contraction and San Marino's dependence on the Italian economy are the standing vulnerabilities.

The food is Romagnol. Fresh egg pasta is the heart of it — strozzapreti, tagliatelle, cappelletti in broth, and passatelli — dressed with ragù or seasonal sauces, and piadina, the thin griddle flatbread of the region, is folded around cured ham, soft squacquerone cheese, and greens.

Grilled and roast meats, coniglio (rabbit), and porcini in season fill the mains, and the local dessert is the torta tre monti, a wafer-and-chocolate cake shaped and named for the three peaks of Monte Titano. San Marino makes its own wines — Sangiovese and the white Biancale — and a herbal liqueur, tilus.

The historic centre of San Marino and Monte Titano are together a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Three medieval fortresses run along the ridge, linked by a cliff- edge path with huge views over Romagna to the Adriatic: the Guaita, the oldest; the Cesta, on the highest point, with a museum of historic arms; and the smaller Montale.

Below them, the walled city is a warren of stepped lanes with the Basilica del Santo, the neoclassical Palazzo Pubblico where the Captains Regent govern and the changing of the guard takes place in summer, the Piazza della Libertà with its Statue of Liberty, and a string of small, quirky museums — of torture instruments, of curiosities, of wax figures, and the state museum of art and archaeology. The cable car down to Borgo Maggiore, itself a pleasant town with a Sunday market, completes a compact visit.