San Marino

June 7, 2011: a beautiful mountaintop, gelato, international soccer, and attempted laundry

About 3.5 hours away from Montecatini is the Republic of San Marino. It is the oldest republic in the world! The scenic drive up the mountain to our hotel was the next best thing to actually being at our hotel, which faced out from the mountain and provided us with a view like something out of a movie. A few steps across the street was a long stretched overlook onto one of the most beautiful mountainous horizons I've ever seen, two blocks down the street stood stairs leading up to the castle of San Marino, and a couple doors to the right was the cafe where I discovered and developed an addiction to hazelnut and chocolate chip gelato. I wonder if this is what heaven is like!

View from across the street

View from our room patio down the street... in the direction of gelato!

What we woke up to... can't complain

On our guided tour of San Marino, we learned that San Marino is its own republic independent of Italy. It's a teeny tiny 62 square kilometers, and it's not looking to gain or lose any land... ever. Being a republic without an army, San Marinians are passionate about peace and pride with a "live and let live" kind of mindset. With a territory as beautiful as theirs, who could blame them?

Climbing the castle

More castle climbing

Beautiful

That night, we went to the soccer match between the San Marino national team and Hungary. A few Coronas after our arrival, we finally made our way past screaming tailgating Hungarians into the stadium. We learned that Hungarians really know how to celebrate soccer. They brought fireworks (I think, I don't know what they were really called) into the stadium, and every time they scored they lit them up. I was too immersed in the experience (or maybe too many beers in the experience, sorry mom and dad) that I'm not sure if it was my ear drums or retinas that were damaged first. San Marino lost 3-0 but we still had a great time!

At the game!

Crazy Hungarian fans

The funniest part of the entire Italy trip took place on our first night in San Marino: my roommates and I trying to wash our own clothes. Laundry cost an arm and a leg at Grand Hotel San Marino, so we decided we were going to fill up our bathtub with water, detergent, and way too many clothes, and do it ourselves. The end result went something like this: the front desk man came up to our room because we unknowingly used the alarm rope as a clothes line, clothes were hung up in an attempt to dry in every part of our room for the rest of our stay there, and in the end, our clothes were neither dry nor fresh smelling. Oops.

Emily adding detergent to the tub