San Marino, from Rimini

Getting there

From Rimini to San Marino there are two roads, and only one is comfortable with a motorhome: the Rimini-San Marino dual carriageway, the SS72, which you take from the Rimini Sud exit of the A14, climbs by way of Dogana and Serravalle and arrives below Monte Titano. The other, the Marecchiese provincial road from the Rimini Nord exit, is the one the Tourist Board recommends for people coming from the Marecchia valley. You do not stop at the border.

• To the motorhome area of the Baldasserona, at Borgo Maggiore: it is car park 13, at via Bigelli 15, along strada della Baldasserona, and the Tourist Board presents it as an equipped area that is completely free, open day and night, with emptying, drinking water and toilets, and with access on foot to the cable car. It is on five terraces, some with a view over the Adriatic; the access road climbs and a long motorhome takes it carefully so as not to scrape. People who slept there in October 2026 report quiet nights. From the lower station of the cable car, in piazzale Campo della Fiera, you go up to the centre; on foot from the area to the cable car it is about three hundred metres uphill, ten minutes or so. It is a free area, so in summer it is best to arrive in the morning
• To car park 10, below the centre: it is the only Tourist Board car park below the centre where motorhomes are allowed, at via Napoleone Bonaparte 43, with a barrier at the entrance and open day and night. From car park 10 you go up to the centre with the lifts of the covered car park 9, which is next to it. The rates on the Tourist Board page, which does not give the year: 5 euros for the minimum stay of two hours; from 1 July to 30 September 10 euros from the third hour until midnight and 15 euros for 24 hours; from 1 October to 30 June 8 and 13 euros. You pay at the automatic pay stations before leaving, in cash or by card
• Fonte dell'Ovo, car park 12: in viale Campo dei Giudei, near the Centro Studi, a large free area for motorhomes and coaches, open day and night, with an emptying point and water. On very crowded days the police send cars here, and a shuttle until 21:00 takes you to piazzale della Stazione, at the foot of the centre: 5 euros per person, return, free for children up to 120 centimetres
• The other stopovers: the Tourist Board counts five equipped areas with a camper service in the territory, and among them, besides the Baldasserona and Fonte dell'Ovo, there are the camper service at Serravalle, in piazzale Papa Giovanni Paolo II, and the Ca' Martino area at Acquaviva. For anyone who wants a campsite there is the Centro Vacanze San Marino, at strada San Michele 50, above Borgo Maggiore: 110 terraced pitches with electricity, the camper service, hot showers and the swimming pool, animals allowed
• With the shuttle from Rimini: the motorhome stays in Rimini and you go up by bus. The Rimini-San Marino Shuttle is run jointly by Bonelli Bus and Benedettini, every day, public holidays included: it leaves from Rimini railway station, stops at the Arch of Augustus, at Borgo Maggiore in front of the Bar Forcellini, at the Murata, and arrives below the centre, at the Bus car park 2 of the former station, in about 55 minutes. In the timetable from 15 September to 7 November 2026 there were eight buses a day, the first from Rimini at 8:00 and the last from San Marino at 19:00. The ticket between Rimini and San Marino costs 7 euros, according to the operator's price list, which does not give the year; you buy it on board, if there are seats, or online. Children taller than one metre pay, and two children under one metre pay a single ticket; small dogs travel in a carrier, with a muzzle and a full ticket
• What you cannot do: the historic centre is closed to traffic, and the car parks inside the walls are for cars. Car park 9, the covered one, is not for motorhomes

Practical information

The historic centre is free and is explored on foot. You pay to go up into the towers and into the museums, with a single ticket for all of them, bought at the ticket desks or online; there is nothing to book, except a guide.

Contacts

Where it is

Repubblica di San Marino

You set off from

Notes

• The three towers: they are the three "feathers" of the coat of arms of San Marino. The First Tower, the Guaita, is the oldest, from the eleventh century, and was the refuge of the first inhabitants of Monte Titano; it has two rings of walls, you go in through the arch where you can still see the slots for the drawbridge, and inside are the chapel of Santa Barbara, the prisons, the bell tower and the Torre della Penna, the old watchtower, from which you look down the sheer drops. Until 1975 it was a prison. The Second Tower, the Cesta, is on the highest summit, with a pentagonal plan, and was a lookout tower as early as Roman times; since 1956 it has housed the Museum of Ancient Arms, about seven hundred weapons from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, in four rooms: armour, polearms, arquebuses and pistols. The Third Tower, the Montale, is the smallest and the most isolated, in the woods at the end of the ridge; it can be seen only from outside, and inside it has a prison eight metres deep, the "fondo della torre", the bottom of the tower
• The Passo delle Streghe: it is the path along the edge of the cliff that links the Guaita to the Cesta, along the walls, with the drop on one side and the woods on the other; from the Cesta another stretch carries on towards the Montale. From here you look over the whole Adriatic coast, and with children you keep to the wall side
• The State Museums, from the website of the Istituti Culturali in 2026: the Pass, valid for all the sites, costs 11 euros, the reduced ticket 8 euros for over 65s, university students and groups of more than twenty-five people, and it is free under 18. From 16:00 until closing, only at the ticket desks, there is the "ultima fascia", last slot, ticket at 5 euros. The Pass is valid for the First and Second Towers, the Palazzo Pubblico when it is open, the Museo di Stato, the Pinacoteca San Francesco, the Galleria Nazionale and the Museum of Stamps and Coins. The 2026 opening hours: in summer, from 28 June to 5 September, from 8:30 to 19:45, with the ticket desk closing at 19:15; in spring, from 29 March to 27 June, and from 6 to 26 September from 10:00 to 17:50; in winter, from 2 January to 28 March and from 27 September to 31 December, from 9:00 to 16:50. Closed on 1 January, 25 December and the afternoon of 2 November. Admission is free on 5 February, 7 July, 3 September, 27 September and on European Heritage Day
• The Palazzo Pubblico, in piazza della Libertà, is the seat of government: built between 1884 and 1894 by the Roman architect Francesco Azzurri in the style of the fourteenth-century town halls, inaugurated on 30 September 1894 with a speech by Giosuè Carducci, and restored by Gae Aulenti until 1996. On the façade are the coats of arms, the mosaic of Saints Leo, Agatha and Marinus on the clock tower, and the balcony from which on 1 April and 1 October the new Captains Regent are announced; inside, the hall of the Great and General Council, with its sixty seats and the large painting by Emilio Retrosi of San Marino appearing to the people. In 2026 the Palazzo was closed for restoration from 2 April to 31 October, write the State Museums, and when it is open it closes to visitors on the days of ceremonies and of the Council
• The changing of the guard: it is carried out by the Guardia di Rocca, the Guard of the Rock, the corps that provides the guard of honour at the Palazzo Pubblico, in dark green jacket, red trousers and kepi with a red pompom. It takes place in summer, every day, in front of the Palazzo: the picket comes out in line from the right-hand door and goes to the sentry post under the loggia. The Tourist Board does not publish the times: ask at the information office
• Piazza della Libertà is the institutional heart of the city, with the Statue of Liberty in the middle. Behind the Palazzo Pubblico is the Cava dei Balestrieri, the crossbowmen's quarry, an old stone quarry where crossbow competitions and flag-wavers' shows are held
• The Basilica del Santo, in piazzale Domus Plebis, is the neoclassical church built between 1826 and 1838 to a design by Antonio Serra of Bologna, with a long flight of steps, eight Corinthian columns and the inscription dedicating the church to Marino, "patron and founder of liberty"; inside are the relics of the Saint. It is the one you see on the San Marino ten cent coins. Admission is free, with the same hours as the museums, and mass on Sundays and holidays at 11:00; during ceremonies it closes to visitors. Next to it, the little church of San Pietro has, in its apse cut into the rock, the two beds that tradition assigns to San Marino and San Leo; you visit it by asking the custodian of the Basilica
• The Museo di Stato, the State Museum, at piazzetta del Titano 1, in the Palazzo Pergami Belluzzi, has about five thousand pieces on four floors: the archaeology of the territory, the art of the Republic, the donations, the coins and medals of San Marino. The museum opened to the public in 1899, and has been here since 2001
• Stamps and coins: San Marino has minted coins since 1863, and since 2002 it has minted its own euros, which are also valid in Italy; the currency in use is the euro. The first stamps date from 1 August 1877, and since then the designs have been commissioned from well-known artists. The Museum of Stamps and Coins, in piazza Garibaldi, tells on two floors the story of the post since 1877 and of the coins from the nineteenth century to the euro, and is included in the Pass. At the same address is the Philatelic and Numismatic Office, which sells stamps and coin sets to collectors
• Documents: there are no checks or formalities at the border, writes the Tourist Board, and anyone who is entitled to enter Italy can enter; you carry your identity document as on any trip abroad. At the tourist information office, at piazza Garibaldi 5, you can have the San Marino tourist visa stamped in your passport, as a souvenir, for 5 euros. The office is open Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 18:00, on Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 to 13:00 and from 13:30 to 18:00. The international dialling code is +378
• The cable car, run by the Azienda Autonoma di Stato per i Servizi Pubblici, the State public services company, links Borgo Maggiore, piazzale Campo della Fiera, to the City, 166 metres higher up, with a car every quarter of an hour. The 2026 timetable: from 1 July to 6 September from 7:45 to 00:45; from 1 April to 30 June and from 7 to 30 September from 7:45 to 19:45; from October to March from 7:45 to 19:00. The fares from 1 March 2026: 4 euros single, 7 euros return, 10 euros for the all-day ticket; free for children under 120 centimetres. Large dogs and bulky luggage pay an extra ticket. In 2026 the cable car stopped for its overhaul from 23 February to 20 March and for testing from 19 to 21 October
• On foot between Borgo Maggiore and the City: anyone who does not take the cable car goes up or down by the Costa dell'Arnella, the old road paved with sandstone that since the early Middle Ages has linked the market square of Borgo Maggiore to the Porta della Rupe, on foot only. Longer and more beautiful, the Sentiero della Rupe, the cliff path, starts from piazza Grande in Borgo Maggiore and immediately enters the woods halfway up the slope, below the rock faces of Monte Titano, with terraces open towards the sea, the peregrine falcons that nest there and the old sanctuary of the Tanaccia; it is free, and can also be done with a nature guide
• The walls and the gates: the centre is enclosed by three rings of walls, and the first is crossed at the Porta del Paese, or Porta San Francesco, next to the church and convent of San Francesco, which houses the Pinacoteca, the picture gallery, with paintings and church furnishings from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. From the Borgo Maggiore side you enter through the Porta della Rupe
• The tunnel of the old train: from 1932 to 1944 a narrow gauge electric train climbed from Rimini to San Marino in about an hour, over 32 kilometres; in the war its tunnels sheltered thousands of evacuees, and the bombing of 26 June 1944 destroyed the line. Since 2012, in the Montale tunnel, under piazzale della Stazione, the restored AB-03 electric railcar has been standing: it is free and can always be visited. The shuttle from Rimini arrives right there, at the former station
• The most crowded days are summer weekends, when the car parks in the centre fill up and the police send cars to Fonte dell'Ovo with the shuttle. In the Tourist Board car parks you pay from 1 April to 30 September from 8:00 to 24:00, from 1 October to 31 March from 8:00 to 20:00
• San Marino Antiqua: in 2026, from 24 to 26 July, the historic centre filled with tournaments, old crafts and period markets for San Marino Antiqua, leggende e storie del Titano, legends and stories of Monte Titano, the historical re-enactment promoted by the Secretariat of State for Tourism, with more than eight hundred people in costume, which took up the legacy of the historic Giornate Medioevali, the Medieval Days, at the end of July, wrote the Resto del Carlino on 21 July 2026
• On 3 September is the feast of San Marino, the founding Saint, and of the Foundation of the Republic: the solemn mass in the Basilica, the procession with the relic, the historical parade of the Federazione Balestrieri, the crossbowmen's federation, which ends with the Palio delle Balestre, a crossbow contest required by the Statutes of the fourteenth century. In 2026, a Thursday, in the afternoon there were also the tombola, the big bingo, and the concert of the Military Band in piazzale Lo Stradone. It is one of the days when the State Museums are free
• On 1 April and 1 October the two new Captains Regent, the heads of State elected every six months, take office, with a ceremony that follows the Statutes of the seventeenth century. You watch from the streets and squares, without a ticket: in the programme published by the Tourist Board for 1 April 2027, at 9:30 the military corps line up in piazza della Libertà for the flag raising, at 10:55 the procession goes from the Palazzo Pubblico to the Basilica del Santo, at 11:55 the oath and investiture in the Palazzo, and at 13:00 the flag lowering
• In winter: from 28 November 2026 to 6 January 2027 there is il Natale delle Meraviglie, the Christmas of wonders, the twenty-fourth edition, with lights in the centre, markets and, at Campo Bruno Reffi, the children's village with Father Christmas until 25 December and the Befana, the good witch of Epiphany, afterwards. On 5 February, the feast of Sant'Agata, the image of the saint is carried in procession from Borgo Maggiore to the Basilica

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