San Marino - the fog, the back breaking climb and the splendid isolation

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Took a bus to San Marino which is only 50 minutes away from the centre of Rimini. The views as we were driving up the mountain were amazing. The bus parked at the first level of the mountain and we got a lift to the next level which is the start of the walking trail. It was difficult to follow the map as the scale was all wrong. The streets were very steep and it was a struggle to get up some of them with the amount of people. Winding the way up towards three towers which are the high points on the mountain you get sneaky views between buildings but by this point the fog had come in thick and fast and you literally couldn’t see anything from the mountain. It was the oddest sensation, it was like you were cut off from the rest of the world as you were so high up to begin with. Coming to a point half way up there is a cable car which takes you down to one of the lower road levels of the mountain so I did a return journey in that which was spectacular even if it was nerve wracking. The large monastery which was near the cable car entrance was beautiful and had some glorious gardens. The lovely basilica was the start of the back breaking climb up to the highest point, this is when it stated raining and it was a case of dive into the nearest café for lunch and hope the weather passed. Braving the rain as it was going nowhere I was proud of myself for reaching the highest point, the tower of Cesta. There was a walk along the wall to complete before stating the decent down. Half of me was glad for such thick fog as I think I would have been crippled by fear if I could have seen the full extent of the drops on either side. I got the bus back to Rimini and it dropped me at Piazza Marvelli which is about 20 minutes away from the hotel. A lovely long walk on the seafront to the hotel and that was me done for.

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