Walk down Via Garibalidi, facing inland from Piazza Tre Martiri, and at the end of this lively shopping street you'll find a ghostly looking arch, isolated on its own sitting slap bang in the middle of the street.

The Montanara gate (Porta Montanara) - also known as the Porta Meridionale is an important monument linking modern Rimini to its past, and has a fascinating story, bearing witness to alternate periods of peace, war, invasion, and trade.

Rimini's initial defensive walls were simple structures, some remains of which can be seen nearby the Arco d'Augusto today. They did not surround the city entirely, as other defensive obstacles like the Sea and the Marecchia river helped protect the nascent Roman town. Amongst the first attempts to build up the defences of the city were those by Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, more commonly known as Sulla (or in Italian Silla), the Roman dictator. It was probably during this period of construction that this Mountain facing gate was first built. Ironically, these defensive walls were destroyed by the very same Sulla when Ariminum supported his rival Gaius Marius during the first civil war. The gate would be partially destroyed and rebuilt a number of times during its history.

The gate actually consisted of two archways, allowing for entrance and exit into the city for farmers, traders, and travellers coming mainly from the hils of the Marecchia valley, coming into the city for markets - for example - which for much of Rimini's history were held in Piazza Tre Martiri (previously known as variously Piazza San Antonio, and Piazza Giulio Cesare), before being moved in the middle ages to their current location in Piazza Cavour (formerly known as Piazza Fontana).

The gate for much of its history was known as the Porta Sant'Andrea, named after the Church which lay outside the city walls, but which was destroyed in and around 1466. The area that surrounds the Montanara gate is still to this day known as the Borgho Sant'Andrea. Porta Sant'Andrea was a problematic name, however, with the arrival of anti-clerical Napoleonic troops in Rimini in 1801, when various monuments had a swift name change (for example, the confusion relating to the statue in Piazza Cavour, which many riminese still refer to as a statue of San Gaudenzio, when in fact it is of Pope Paul V, dates back to this period). So the gate became known by its descriptive and secular name as the Porta Montanara (the Mountain Gate)

The gate survived the French invasion, and the risorgimento intact, but was not so lucky during the heavy bombing campaign that characterised the Battle of Rimini during the second world war. One half of the gate was demolished when bombs struck the city centre in late August and early September of 1944.

The half of the gate which did survive the war was not particularly lucky in the reconstruction period. The Italian authorities sent an inspection to the city to make an assesment on the bomb damage, and those responsible declared this wonderful ancient gate to be of little importance - and thus it was moved from its original location to a spot in what would become a car park behind the Tempio Malatestiano!

Thankfully we live in more enlightened and less pressing times, and in 2004 the remains of the ancient Porta Montanara were cleaned, restored and replaced close to its original location (slightly off centre, due to traffic planning in the intervening years).