Lady’s Itinerary for 24 Hours in San Marino

Today I want to share my travel itinerary for 24 hours in San Marino with you. This tiny mountainous country in Europe is surrounded by Italy, but it has a unique character of its own that makes it worth visiting.

24 Hours in San Marino

San Marino was my 90th country. For months I’d been working towards a goal of traveling to 90 countries before my 30th birthday, and I chose San Marino as the place to accomplish it. Why? It was close, and I was curious.

What would a landlocked hilltop principality be like? It was more difficult to find out than I expected.

I couldn’t find much information about spending 24 hours in San Marino online, the tourism board didn’t respond to any of my emails, and nobody I knew had ever been there.

How to Get to San Marino

After a while I decided to let this tiny mystery country reveal itself in its own time. I flew from London to Bologna with a friend the day before my birthday, and we took a train from the central station to Rimini.

Traveling by rail proved a good way of getting from Bologna to the nearest Italian city to San Marino.

From Rimini we took a bus to San Marino, winding our way through the countryside and up a steep hill to reach our final destination.

The border crossing was so subtle we didn’t even realize we were in another country until we started seeing signs for various administrative districts.

Where to Stay in San Marino

When the bus reached its terminus high on Monte Titano, we alighted and walked the short distance to our accommodation, the Grand Hotel San Marino.

There we were given a warm welcome by the general manager, who talked to us about the country and encouraged us to see the sights during our 24 hours in San Marino.

We then checked into our room at the Grand Hotel San Marino. It was a comfortable one with two beds and a good size bathroom.

We settled in and took advantage of the WiFi before setting off to continue our 24 hours in San Marino with some sightseeing.

Things to Do in 24 hours in San Marino

Given it was a small country, it didn’t take long for us to see the highlights. But what we saw impressed us.

Having arrived with no idea what to expect from San Marino, we were pleasantly surprised to find the romantic ruins of fortifications, narrow streets full of shops and restaurants, and wide plazas offering sweeping views of the Italian countryside.

During our 24 hours in San Marino we visited the 11th-century Three Towers, walked past the city’s cable car and around the medieval walled old town, and gazed out over beautiful orange tile rooftops.

We strolled by shops selling more tax-free goods than I’ve ever seen (including a disconcerting number of gigantic firearms), and stopped into quiet churches to soak up the atmosphere.

After walking up and down the hills and along the cobblestone lanes, we found ourselves in a small wine bar during our 24 hours in San Marino.

There we enjoyed some local wine from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. It was delicious and great value, and it took all our will-power not to have too much of it before dinner.

Restaurants in San Marino

Dinner was another pleasant surprise. We’d passed by a restaurant in one of the city’s squares as we were exploring San Marino, and we decided to go back to look at the menu at dinnertime.

It had several menus on display, including a run-of-the-mill tourist menu and a tantalizing tasting menu.

Gravitating towards the latter, we rationalized an impromptu fine dining experience. Given I’d completed my 90 under 30 Travel Project that day, it wasn’t entirely unjustified.

We walked inside, pointed to our menu of choice, and allowed the host to show us up the stairs.

Ristorante Righi’s rustic ground floor area belied the elegance of the dining room on the level above.

Gone were the touristy tablecloths and large-print menus. This was all refinement. It was just what we wanted for our celebratory meal.

We spent the next three of our 24 hours in San Marino in a whirlwind of flavors and aromas. One course flowed blissfully into another as we sipped our wine and talked about future travel plans.

The dinner was a great way to end our day in San Marino. When we finished, we drifted back to the Grand Hotel San Marino through the narrow lamplit streets under towering turrets on the hills above.

24 Hours in San Marino

This fairy-tale country tucked away in the middle of Italy was well worth a trip.

The fact that we seemed to have the whole place to ourselves almost made me glad I’d found so little information about spending 24 hours in San Marino before I arrived.

My 90th country may have been located right in the heart of Europe, but it was one of the least-known countries I’ve ever been to.

For the sake of future visitors to this mysterious corner of the world, I think we should keep it that way. Don’t tell your friends…

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