Anybody been to San Marino?

[Franco]

Ooh err.

As I'm here, I'll just take the opportunity to mention a few evocative names: Rivazza, Tamburello, Acque Minerali.

Sorry, English is not my native language. What I meant was " If I was in your position".

[Carlton-Browne]

Well, I suppose I should report back and say that I made it to San Marino last Friday after all. Wrist shot taken in one of the three hilltop forts.



Overall I wouldn't recommend the experience unless you're keen on crossing another country off the list (I was - I have a little competition running with an ex-colleague of mine and it's unlikely he'll be able to do this easily, particularly as there's no British Embassy here. I'm not going to win though as he has at least 150 under his belt and I'm about a ton short). There is a strong preponderance of Russian tourists and I'm inclined to believe that this is as much related to the popularity of the coast around Rimini amongst Russian tourists as anything else. The old town has a couple of interesting sites (the basilica is actually quite nice - small but fairly perfectly formed) but one tires of the perfume/handbag/sunglasses shops and kiosks which are every couple of yards and many of which have fluffers outside trying to coax you in. It seems to be fairly lowest-common-denominator tourism.

While waiting for the bus in Rimini I had time to go to the beach and I wouldn't recommend that either. Having grown up in Ireland I suppose that I'm used to the idea of a beach as an emptyish windy place where you walk the dogs and normally need a hat and a coat. The Rimini concept is to have square miles of sun loungers packed in like sardines in serried ranks- I really couldn't hack that at all.

[Plug]

We went to San Marino a couple of years ago, on a day trip from Rimini. The thing that sticks in the mind was that we kept driving upwards (and there's a lot of up from Rimini), eventually arriving at the car park of what was obviously the San Marino equivalent of BBC TV centre. Much better place to build a broadcast HQ IMHO, on top of a geet big hill rather than Sheperd's Bush, but I digress.

Having admired the view, we had a quick look around and were somewhat surprised to find a bronze bust of Gandhi. Yes, that one. Random..



Cheers,

Plug