It's San Marino for beauty and charm

Guaita Tower, one of three crowning Mt. Titano, overlooks the city of San Marino below. Set on an outcropping of the Apennine Mountains, it is the world's oldest republic, based on its founding in the early part of the 4th century. At that time, a Christian stonemason named Marinus (Italianized to Marino), forced by agents of the Roman Emperor Diocletian to work at the Adriatic seaport of Rimini, escaped to 2,500-foot Mt. Titano about 10 miles west. The little settlement that collected around him was apparently too poor and remote to be worth Roman reprisal, so Marino (who was eventually canonized) could say to his compatriots on his deathbed, "I leave you free."

(Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)