Santarcangelo di Romagna, from Rimini

Getting there

From Rimini you head towards Bologna on the via Emilia, the statale 9, and after the countryside you reach the foot of the hill. The historic centre and the streets around the tourist office are in a limited traffic zone: you leave the motorhome in the motorhome area or in the big car park of piazzale Campana, and walk up.

• By motorhome: the SantarCamper motorhome area is at via della Resistenza 17, six hundred metres from piazza Ganganelli, ten minutes or so on foot. Free, without facilities, you can also park and stop at the Area Campana, piazzale Augusto Campana, the biggest car park in town, 700 or 800 metres from the tourist office: the tourist office recommends it to everyone, because there are always spaces, except in the last week of August, when the square is needed for the festivals, and in the first half of November, when the funfair rides of the Fiera di San Martino are there. The other car parks, in piazza Marconi, at the Francolini, in via Piave, in via Cagnacci and at the hospital, are closer but small and often full, above all on market days and at weekends, and not all are free
• By train from Rimini: the Trenitalia regional trains between Rimini station and Santarcangelo station take from 7 to 11 minutes, and the ticket costs 1.60 euros, according to the November 2026 timetable, with more or less one train an hour and the last one back towards Rimini shortly after 23:00 on weekdays. Santarcangelo station, in piazzale Esperanto, has only ticket machines and is a kilometre from piazza Ganganelli, a quarter of an hour on foot. It is the easiest way for the Festival evenings and for the Fiera, and for anyone with the motorhome parked in Rimini near the station
• By bus from Rimini: Start Romagna's line 9 leaves from Rimini airport, passes through the station and arrives in Santarcangelo; line 90 runs from Rimini station to Santarcangelo station, writes Santarcangelo Festival in its directions
• From the motorway: the Rimini Nord exit of the A14 is 4 kilometres from Santarcangelo

Practical information

The monumental cave can be visited only with the guide: you book at the tourist office, from where the visit starts. The old town, the square, the Arch and the outside of the Rocca can be explored freely; the MUSAS has its own days, and the Stamperia Marchi shows the mangle working in the morning from Monday to Saturday.

Contacts

Where it is

Santarcangelo di Romagna · Emilia-Romagna

You set off from

Notes

• The tourist office, the IAT of the Pro Loco, is at via Cesare Battisti 5, a few steps from piazza Ganganelli, inside the limited traffic zone. It is open every day except 25 December, the morning of 26 December and 1 January: from 28 March to 25 October from 8:30 to 12:30 and from 15:00 to 19:00, from 26 October to 27 March from 8:30 to 12:30 and from 14:00 to 18:00, according to the IAT, which does not give the year
• The monumental cave, also called the grotta Amati or Contradina, is the Comune's hypogeum, the underground chamber: long vaulted corridors dug into the sandstone lead to chambers and niches on several levels, and at the entrance there is a colonnade that came from the fourteenth-century Franciscan church that stood in piazza Ganganelli, where the primary school is today. Who dug them and when, nobody knows, and they have served many purposes: certainly in the last war they saved many lives, giving shelter to the people of the town. Legend tells of secret passages and of looms of solid gold guarded by the spirits of their owners. The IAT also tells of Sangiovese aged in barrels inside the caves, and Sangiovese, says another legend, was born right here, on the colle Giove, the hill of Jupiter
• The guided tour of the cave, from the tourist office: it lasts about fifty minutes and leaves from the IAT every day, except 25 December, 1 January and some changes that the IAT announces on its website. From 28 March to 25 October at 10:00, 11:30, 15:30, 16:30 and 17:30; from 26 October to 27 March at 10:00, 11:30, 15:00, 16:00 and 17:00. The ticket, paid at the IAT, is 5 euros, 4 euros reduced (over 65, with the UNPLI card and for groups of more than twenty people), free up to 14. The price also includes the fifteenth-century casemate in the archaeological area of piazza Balacchi, if the group is small and it is not raining. Groups already formed of at least eight people can add a private cave, booking a week ahead: an hour and a quarter, 7 euros and 6 reduced
• In summer, in the evening: the IAT organises Santarcangelo d'atmosfera, an evening walk of about two hours through the alleys and steps of the old town, with a visit to the caves: one evening a week from June to September, at 21:00, meeting at the fountain in piazza Ganganelli, at 15 euros, free up to 14, booking at least 24 hours ahead. The IAT's other walks, on the Malatesta, on night-time legends and on the churches, are for groups of at least ten people or on the dates published in the news section of the website
• Piazza Ganganelli was only an open space at the foot of the old town until the eighteenth century. With the Unification of Italy the town hall, the schools and the hospital were built around it; in 1928 the war memorial and in 1989 the fountain designed by Tonino Guerra. On Monday and Friday mornings there is the market, on Saturday mornings the fruit and vegetable growers' market, and on the first Sunday of the month the antiques market. On Thursday afternoons, by tradition, the town's shops are closed, Stamperia Marchi included
• The Arco Ganganelli: in Morelli's design it was to have on top a marble statue of the pope giving his blessing; the design was later made by Canova, and the statue is in Rome, on the tomb of Clement XIV in the basilica of the Santi Apostoli. On top is the papal coat of arms. At San Martino a trophy of ox horns is hung under the Arch: if they sway as you pass, says tradition, your partner's faithfulness is in doubt
• The climb to the old town: from the square you go up into the medieval citadel, enclosed within the walls that Carlo Malatesta began at the end of the fourteenth century and Sigismondo Pandolfo strengthened in 1447. Of the four gates only Porta Cervese survives intact, named after the road that led to the salt pans of Cervia. You pass by the Piazzetta delle Monache, with the convent of Saints Catherine and Barbara and the palazzo Cenci of the MUSAS, by the Sferisterio, built at the end of the eighteenth century for pallone col bracciale, the old ball game played with a wooden armguard, which is still played here, by the Campanone and, at the top, by the Rocca. In the town there are also the municipal Pescheria, the fish market, of 1834, with benches of San Marino stone, and the portici Torlonia, the Torlonia porticoes, of 1861 in piazza Marini, where on Fridays there is the fruit market
• The Rocca Malatestiana is private and cannot be visited inside: the IAT's guided walks show it only from outside. It has a courtyard with a medieval cistern and three halls with seventeenth-century furniture. Within its walls, according to legend, the story of Paolo and Francesca may have taken place, the one in the fifth canto of Dante's Inferno
• The Chiesa Collegiata, the collegiate church, was built between 1744 and 1756: it has an organ of 1779 by the Venetian Gaetano Callido that still plays, the first signed work by Guido Cagnacci, a painter born in Santarcangelo, from 1635, and a crucifix of the fourteenth-century Rimini school of Giotto's followers that comes from the Pieve
• The Stamperia Marchi, at via Cesare Battisti 15, a few steps from the IAT: the mangle can be seen free during shop hours. The visit to the mangle working and to the print shop, about twenty minutes, takes place Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 12:00, with a start every half hour, and in the afternoon by booking, at 4 euros per person, free for children under 10 with their parents, according to the print shop, which does not give the year. You see the man step into the wheel and his weight roll the stone back and forth over the rollers on which the cloth is wound; then the wooden blocks carved by hand, some from the seventeenth century, and the rust colour, made with rusted iron according to a recipe the family hands down. The workshop with a printing trial, an hour with the visit, costs 35 euros for adults. Telephone 0541 626018
• The MUSAS, the Museo storico archeologico, the town's history and archaeology museum, at via della Costa 26, in the palazzo Cenci: from the finds of the Roman period, when there were fields and craftsmen's workshops here, to the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, with the polyptych by Jacobello di Bonomo of 1385 and a panel by Luca Longhi of 1531 from the church of San Francesco, and a room for Clement XIV with his portraits and the sacred objects he gave to the friars. At the entrance the Armadio del Tempo, the cupboard of time, has ten objects, one for each period, copied by 3D printing, which can be touched; the free audio guide in Italian and English is on izi.TRAVEL. The entrance with a ramp is in via dei Fabbri. According to the museum, until 5 November 2026 it is open on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays from 16:00 to 20:00; from 6 November 2026 on Friday and Saturday from 15:30 to 19:00, on Sunday and public holidays from 9:30 to 12:30 and from 15:30 to 19:00, and on 11 November, for San Martino, from 9:30 to 12:30 and from 15:30 to 19:00. On other days it opens on request, three days ahead, on 0541 624703, Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 13:00
• The MET, the Museo degli usi e costumi della gente di Romagna, the museum of the customs and traditions of the people of Romagna, at via Montevecchi 41, with the tools and objects of country life in its rooms and outdoors, is closed for renovation work in 2026. Meanwhile its Deposito, the storeroom, is open, where the ethnographic and archaeological collections of the town's museums are kept: on the second Sunday of every month, with three sessions at 16:00, 17:00 and 18:00, and on other days on request, booking three days ahead at the same number as the MUSAS
• The other museums: the museum Nel mondo di Tonino Guerra, in the world of Tonino Guerra, in the former Monte di Pietà, the old pawnshop, with more than sixty works by the poet including paintings, ceramics, tapestries and printed cloths, is closed today according to the IAT. The Museo del Bottone, the button museum, born from the collection of the old Zucchi haberdashery, tells four centuries of history through buttons: to visit, phone 366 686 9945
• The Pieve di San Michele Arcangelo, outside the centre to the south, was the most important church of the town until the eighteenth century: a single nave, a seven-sided apse, and the bell tower in the middle of the façade, with the door at its base; the reused bricks and the mortars bring it close to the Byzantine churches of Ravenna, San Vitale and Sant'Apollinare in Classe. Inside, the stone cippus, the pillar, that supports the altar has an eagle carved on it. Legend has it that a tunnel linked it to the Rocca. Openings are arranged through the IAT, which includes it with the Collegiata in the walk on the places of faith, for groups of at least ten people, at 10 euros, free up to 14
• The Capuchin convent, of 1654-1661, stands on the colle Giove, the hill of the Sangiovese legend: from the terrace you see the historic centre as far as the sea, and next to it begins the parco dei Cappuccini, a wood in the town. About two kilometres from the centre, on the Marecchia, is Mutonia, an open park where artists from all over the world meet to work and create their works
• The poets: Raffaello Baldini, born here in 1924 and died in Milan in 2005, a journalist at Panorama, wrote in dialect «E' solitèri», «La nàiva» and «Furistír», which won the Premio Viareggio; Nino Pedretti, born in 1923, died in 1981, a language teacher, published «Al vòuşi» in 1975; Tonino Guerra, born in Santarcangelo on 16 March 1920 and died here on 21 March 2012, wrote poems in dialect and the screenplays of Fellini's greatest films
• Santarcangelo Festival, born in 1971 as the Festival internazionale del teatro in piazza, the international festival of theatre in the square, today one of the most important Italian festivals of contemporary theatre, dance and the performing arts, is the most important cultural event of the year: for ten days in July, shows, dance and performances in the squares, the courtyards and the theatres of the town, many outdoors and in the evening. In 2026 it ran from 3 to 12 July; the festival has not yet published the 2027 dates. The shows end late: from Rimini come by train
• The other festivals of summer and autumn: Calici Santarcangelo, the wine festival, in 2026 was on 7 and 8 August, with events starting from 1 August; at the end of August the Not Film Fest, the independent cinema festival, and in early September the Cantiere poetico, the poetry workshop, on the poetry of the town. The Fiera di San Michele, the bird fair, documented by an edict of the Malatesta of 1472, in 2026 was on 26 and 27 September, in the centre, from 8:30 to 22:00
• The Fiera di San Martino, the "Fira di Becc", the fair of the cuckolds, is the biggest festival in town and revolves around 11 November, the day of the patron saint. In 2026, according to the Comune, it runs from Saturday 7 to Wednesday 11 November, with a preview from the evening of Friday 6. The big market is on 7, 8 and 11 November through the streets of the centre, and there are more than a hundred places to eat, from piada upwards, the national Sagra dei cantastorie, the festival of the ballad singers, and the Palio della piadina of the Pro Loco, the piadina contest, the craftspeople of Fattamano under the porticoes of the square, the Villaggio dei Cornuti, the cuckolds' village, in piazzale Francolini, and walking under the horns of the Arch. The streets of the centre are closed to traffic, piazzale Campana is taken up by the funfair rides, and on 7 and 8 November two shuttle buses run to the centre from the car parks in via della Quercia, with 500 spaces, and at the central cemetery: for anyone coming from Rimini the train is the simplest way

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