In San Marino: The World’s Oldest Country

It was hard to believe that only an hour away from a tumultuous coastal town of Rimini, on the Apennine mountain, lies hidden an entire country. “We are going up to the house of God,” Alena made a comment while we are squirming in our seats and peeking out of the window to catch the breathtaking hilly landscape we left behind as our bus slowly zigzags its way into the world’s oldest Republic. The oldest country in the world. Wow! How many times in your life can you claim to have witnessed, visited or done something ‘est’: largest, smallest…? This is surreal. I didn’t imagine this pleasant surprise given San Marino belongs to my check-off list, a list of countries I visit just for the sake of crossing them out from my Europe extravaganza. I didn’t bother to find out anything more about San Marino only looked up for the bus schedule from Rimini. Maybe now and then, I should stop preparing and try to be as much ignorant as possible, no Internet image search and travel guide and let the future destination takes care of itself.

During the last few years, I have become infatuated with the vast array of vivid colors painted on houses and shops seen everywhere in the Czech Republic and many other European old towns. This colorful messiness brings about an undeniable charm to the old continent. But here in San Marino, the few shades of beige covers on every walls and doors door resembling a gigantic Revlon’s showcase of facial foundation. I am overtaken by the striking difference between this city and the others that I’ve seen before. In contrast with the reserved, neutral tone of ancient walls are bright designer bags, accessories and souvenirs display in alley shops.

San Marino was undoubtedly beautiful. But I suspect the physiology-psychology effect played a role as well. There is a “look-up” trick I’ve used often and sometimes advise my friends to do the same. The simple trick works every time. When I sense some nervousness, anger or sadness from my friends, I ask them to look up. Some abide immediately; others hesitate thinking I intend to make them look stupid, but eventually they all do. I let them looking up to nothing particular for a while before revealing my experiment. By looking up, you change certain muscles on our face, changing the physiology, thus changing your mental state. For example, when you smile, the mouth opens wider. This does not mean when your mouth is wide open; you smile. However, if you deliberately stretch the muscles on either side of your mouth, you forcefully put yourself in a smiley face state ?. In this induced positive stage, it’s harder to be sad or angry.

What does this have anything to do with San Marino? The city is located on the mountain. From the moment the bus pulls into the parking lot, you have to climb many stairs to get to the entrance gate. Then you walk up to another layer of the town before continuing in narrow alleys to get to three fortresses perched on the mountain top. You do look down, around and about, but mostly you look up.

I had a map ready to be examined but never feel the need use it. The city is small and isolated in a place of its own; you cannot possibly stray away from it. The entire country occupies only 24 square miles (61 square km) area has remained the same since 1463 after Pope Pius II granted more lands to reward San Marino’s alliance against Lord of Rimini. Moreover, I lost interest in finding historical buildings and landmarks written in my guide book. The name the oldest church or the year, when a landmark building was constructed, was no longer relevant to me. These facts are useful to fill up a Wiki page but cease to mean anything when it comes to understanding a country.

I wanted to try if I could see something more hidden. The perfect weather enabled tourists and locals to roam the street and chill out in front of tourist shops. Ancient and modern styles, traditional and chic fashions blended themselves to bring out a special aura about this country. Like their Italian neighbors, Sanmarinese were friendly and enjoyed life. They didn’t look bothered by the triviality that seemed to enshroud us all. They smiled, laughed, greeted passerby and looked happy, not only because of we, the tourists, brought in 50% of their national GDP. It sort of dawns on me that perhaps people from Mediterranean climate knew a secret on living life?

The historical center was small, thus navigating it was as simple as keeping walking up and following small alleys lined with colorful shops, circling the squares until you reached the end of a fortified wall where you would see high towers atop. Climbing the stairs leading to one of the towers, I suddenly remembered another time, another place.

I remembered my years in elementary and high school. I didn’t enjoy school a lot if not at all because I could not relate bookish stuff to the real world, not even a simplest thing. I was taught that the sun rose in the east and set in the west. But seeing the sunset, I could not put to two together and figured out the correct direction. Likewise, history and geography were tedious and time wasters by learning the ‘what,’ ‘when’ and ‘where.’ Without the ‘why’ and ‘how,’ it was impossible to apply the theories and facts. I thought I knew a whole lot, but in reality, I knew nothing at all. W

hen I stood by the fortified wall facing the tower, looking down to the city below, I recalled the bus trip from low-land Rimini to the mountaintop and had a strange hallelujah moment. I swear I could clearly picture in front of me the scenery that might have happened hundreds of years ago. I saw fleeing Christian Sanmarinese in medieval costumes on foot and horseback escaping to the mountain, settling in and defending themselves against the army of Roman Emperor Diocletian from Rimini. (Three years exploring castles and fortresses in the Czech Republic helped with this vivid visualization.) Yes, flocking to the nearest high mountain was the only logical way. There they could quickly fortify themselves against the enemy. They could easily spot the enemy from the high place, thus prepared counter-attacks. Sanmarinese probably succeeded in the end. Otherwise, their country would not be the oldest state today. It was never broken up and annexed by their Italian superpower neighbor. San Marino was the only Italian city-state that kept its independence after the unification of Italy in 1861. Why? Because a few year earlier, San Marino offered a refuge to those who supported the unification.

Though small in size, it has something else bigger. “Although your dominion is small your state is nevertheless one of the most honored in all history.” This statement comes from no other than one of the most honorable men, American President Abraham Lincoln. Maybe San Marino should be used as the model for world peace. This is unrealistic, idealistic and simply unachievable since the geographic world we have today has almost attained its orderliness. But if every country has the size and population of San Marino, there might not be any dispute of border, territory and centralized power or any of these mind-boggling conflicts which cause senseless wars even when we are well into the 21st century.

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