San Marino

San Marino is a tourist magnet nestled in the Apennine Mountains and surrounded entirely by the nation of Italy. So what makes it a must see destination for travellers? The answer is perhaps in its history, geographical location and a simple curiosity of how such a small country can exists surrounded by another, and yet not have been taken over through the centuries. In fact, the Republic of San Marino has been independent for many centuries and is claimed to be the oldest republic with its constitution established in 1600. When I was there, the country had its own currency that was called lira. It looked very similar in size and presentation to the Italian lira, but had its own images and words minted. Recently, the euro has been adapted as its currency. San Marino is allowed to have its own design on the national site of the euro coin. I will leave the discussion of San Marino's history to the many books that do it more credit than this article could manage in a few paragraphs. Needless to say, it is a country well worth seeing if you are in the neighbourhood. We travelled to St Marino by bus from the Italian town of Rimini. The scenery was simple breathtaking as we navigated the twisting mountain road that led to San Marino. Once there, we mostly travelled on foot as the streets are narrow and cobbled. There were a lot of souvenir shops along the streets and I simply could not walk around without satisfying my curiosity and popping into some of them. There are a lot of photographic opportunities here. If you get to San Marino early in the morning or late in the afternoon you get that feeling of going back to medieval times. Everywhere you go, you see the ancient fortifications intertwined with fortress like buildings and squares. My main interest was in seeing the change of guard at the Government house. That event occurs every hour and last only a few minutes. But the old ritual is worth seeing and definitely worth photographing. The guards' uniforms are a mixture of green and red. The old fashioned rifles are very long indeed, almost reaching the floor when being held upright. A day trip to this nice little country, full of photographic opportunities, is my recommendation.