When I went to the Vatican City last month, I set a new record for my shortest-ever visit to a foreign country. Judging from the timestamps on my photos, it was literally 20 minutes or so. San Marino gets a silver medal, because I was there for about an hour and a half.
I went to San Marino solely in order to be able to say that I've been to San Marino, and thus to inflict this completely pointless blog upon you all. I knew nothing about the place before arriving, and I can't say I learned much while there, other than that the main bit of it sits on top of a mountain, with a handy cable car. So let's fall back on Google...
It's the world's oldest surviving republic. The population is officially 33,642. (Roughly equivalent to three council wards in Sunderland. Pallion & Millfield & Barnes, or something like that.) It's not in the EU, and I suspect the main reason is that there's no way the big EU states would want to hand veto powers to 33,642 people. Currently the EU member with the smallest population is Malta, which does at least boast a population of half a million.
San Marino's football team started competing officially in 1990. Harry Kane has scored more goals against San Marino than any other country he's played against. They've only ever won three games, all of them against Liechtenstein (population: 39,584). Must be galling for the Liechtenish or whatever they call themselves. People from San Marino are officially called sammarinese.
Well, anyway, thanks for reading.
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| View to the north-west |
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| View to the west |
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| Statue Of Liberty |
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| Looking at the Third Tower from the Second Tower |
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| Edd vs Food #146 Cheesy chili hot dog from, er, a stall. |
