Another country ticked off!!

San Marino is actually a country surrounded by Italy. We've been to Italy several times before but not made it to the little Republic of San Marino.

It was rather an adventurous journey.

After saying goodbye to our French hire car in Nice we hoisted our backpacks and walked some 3 kilometres to the address we had for the Eurolines bus we had booked, to take us to Florence in Italy. Nice, being a rather unsavory sort of place late at night, we chose to arrive at midnight for our 4am bus, thinking the bus station would be the safest place to be. Wrong. The bus station had been pulled down to be rebuilt and there was no bus station. Just a stop to wait for the bus that would be coming from somewhere else. Yikes! 4 hours to wait.

We watched the passing parade of hookers and night time revelers and even had someone stop and tell us it wasn't a safe place to be! Around 1.30am we were joined by an American who didn't have a ticket but was hoping to purchase one. He too thought there would be a bus station to wait in. A group of noisy revelers went past and then we spotted a huge trail of blood following them. This was not the best place to be! Eventually some Aussie girls turned up too, then the bus arrived at 4.00am and we boarded for the 6 hour trip into neighbouring Italy, sleeping most of the way. It was straight to the train station then to buy a ticket for Rimini, where we had accommodation booked at the Sunflower Backpackers.

Rimini is the closest town/city to San Marino and on the Italian Riveria. Hoisting our backpacks we found our accommodation and the highest bunk bed we have ever seen in our life! The double bed section was at the top and we felt like we were in a loft when we climbed up to bed! 
Next day we stored our packs at the hostel and caught the three quarter hour bus to San Marino. It was awash with tourists of course, but we enjoyed a walk around the historic streets, took a ride on the cable car and learnt a little about how it has remained separate from Italy. The whole of San Marino is heritage listed. 

A bus back and a walk to pick up our luggage, then off to the train station to catch a train to Ravenna to see some more UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Footnote: San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titano is an UNESCO World Heritage listed site.