The Cesta, San Marino's highest tower, and the weapons inside

The Cesta is the tower with the best approach and the highest position. That would be enough on its own, but inside it also hides the most unexpected museum on the State Museums pass, a collection of historic weapons with a couple of pieces nobody expects to find at the top of Titano. This is how I’d see it.

The second tower, and the highest

The State Museums describe it as the halfway point of the scenic path that joins the three old towers along the mountain’s rim, and put it on the very top of Titano, 755 metres up. It goes by the Cesta and also the Fratta. A document already mentions it in 1253, an outer wall was added in 1320, and from the 17th century it fell out of use.

Much of what you see today comes from a thorough restoration in 1924 and 1925. I don’t count that against it. UNESCO treats the early 20th-century restorations that gave the site its medieval look as part of its history, and this tower is a fine example of that period. What’s genuinely old is the 16th-century gate carved with the date 1596, and it deserves a second’s pause before you go in.

What’s inside the Museum of Ancient Arms?

Since 1956 the tower has been home to the Museum of Ancient Arms, which displays some 700 pieces of different kinds and periods. The state built up the collection between 1956 and 1972. Other websites quote bigger numbers, but I’ll stick with the official one.

The visit runs through four rooms. First come the polearms, from 15th-century war axes to 17th-century parade halberds that were more about ceremony than combat. The second room, the armour, covers 1490 to 1630 and is the best of the lot for me. The third traces firearms from the 15th-century matchlock arquebus to a rare Bavarian breech-loader from around 1720. The fourth brings you into the 18th to 20th centuries, with Napoleonic pieces.

The one piece I’d go looking for

In the armour room there’s an engraved and gilded breastplate made for a child around 1540 in the royal workshops at Greenwich. A luxury piece of armour for a child, made in England and kept today on the summit of San Marino. That single piece tells me more about power and warfare in the 16th century than a whole room of swords, and it’s the first thing I’d seek out. For a British visitor it’s an odd and rather lovely link with home.

If weapons don’t interest you, fine. You’d still go in for the height and the view from the tower, and the museum takes little time. The private site sanmarinosite.com describes the upper room as having views all the way round, from the Montefeltro to the coast, and the other high points appear in my list of viewpoints in San Marino.

Tickets, hours and getting there

The Cesta isn’t charged separately. The same State Museums pass does the job, €11 or €8 reduced, and it also covers the Guaita, San Marino’s First Tower, the State Museum, the art gallery and the rest of the public sites, with free entry for under-18s. From 27 September 2026 the winter timetable runs 09:00 to 16:50, with last tickets at 16:30. Turn up in the final hour of the day and there’s a €5 ticket, sold only at the desk, that covers every site, which makes a late look at the arms a bargain.

The approach I’d choose is the Witches’ Passage from the Guaita, around 200 metres of battlemented path along the edge of the mountain. The official address is Salita alla Cesta and the tower’s phone number is 0549 991295.

Is it worth carrying on after the Cesta?

If your legs are up to it, yes. A woodland path of about twenty minutes, easy according to sanmarinosite.com, runs from the Cesta to the Montale, the Third Tower, which isn’t open to the public but completes the ridge. Short of time, I’d turn back here, as you’ve already done the best of the route.

One detail for your pocket. According to the ECB, the €1 coin from San Marino’s second series shows the Second Tower, so you can take the Cesta home in your wallet. How the three fit into one morning is covered on my Three Towers of San Marino route.