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Coverage / San Marino

San Marino

Southern Europe

One of the world's oldest and smallest republics, a landlocked micro-state entirely surrounded by Italy, built up the slopes and crest of Monte Titano above the Adriatic plain near Rimini. Its walled historic centre, three medieval tower-fortresses and unbroken civic traditions, including the twice-yearly investiture of its Captains Regent, are inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

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What you can do in San Marino

Museums & Galleries

City of San MarinoApr May Jun Sep OctThe old city of San Marino is a small, dense museum-town strung along the top of a limestone ridge, and its collections and monuments sit within a few minutes' walk of each other. The set piece is the ridge itself, the three tower-fortresses of Guaita, Cesta and Montale linked by the Passo delle Streghe, the Witches' Pass, with the eleventh-century Guaita the oldest and the Cesta housing the Museum of Ancient Weapons. Below them the State Museum holds the republic's archaeology, art and coins, the Palazzo Pubblico is the working seat of government with its ceremonial guard, and further galleries cover sacred art and modern painting. It is all bound up with an unbroken civic history that helped earn the historic centre and Monte Titano their UNESCO listing in 2008. For a traveller it is a compact, walkable concentration of medieval fortification and small national collections with long views over the Adriatic plain to Rimini.

Music & Culture Festivals

Giornate MedioevaliCity of San MarinoJulFor a weekend at the end of July the walled town of San Marino throws itself back to the Middle Ages. The Giornate Medioevali fill the streets, squares and ramparts with costumed processions, medieval markets and taverns, music and dance, and demonstrations of the crafts and arms of the period, from smiths and falconers to the crossbowmen and flag-throwers who are part of the republic's real ceremonial tradition. The steep lanes of the historic centre and the tower-fortresses make an unusually convincing backdrop, so the re-enactment reads less as a stage set than as the old republic briefly switched back on. Evenings bring torch-lit processions and shows on the main squares. For a traveller it is the liveliest time to see San Marino, a small country leaning fully into the medieval identity that its UNESCO-listed centre and its crossbow palios keep alive the rest of the year.

Witness / Attend

Investiture of the Captains RegentCity of San MarinoApr OctTwice a year, on 1 April and 1 October, San Marino installs two new heads of state in a ceremony that has run largely unbroken since at least 1243. The Captains Regent, elected every six months by the Great and General Council, are sworn in through a sequence of rites laid down in statutes from the 1600s: the military corps line up before the Palazzo Pubblico for the flag-raising, a procession moves through the old town to the Basilica for a High Mass, and the new Regents return to the palace to take the oath and receive the keys of office. Crossbowmen and the ceremonial Guard of the Rock in historic dress give it the look of a living medieval pageant, and it is one of the traditions that helped earn the republic its UNESCO listing. For a traveller it is a rare chance to watch a genuine, functioning civic ritual of a sovereign state, staged free in the streets and squares of the capital.

Best months at a glance

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Museums
Music Festivals
Witness / Attend

Upcoming events in San Marino