From the second half of the 1920s until 1945, Albania became very much under the influence of Mussolini’s fascist Italy, and in April 1939 the country was invaded by Italy. Mussolini’s son-in-law Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) built a hunting lodge in the Albanian countryside. This was still standing when I visited the country in 1984, and then again in 2016. Here is what I saw.
1984 – During a guided tour in which all the tourists were closely watched by Albanian security officials.
A short distance away from Lezhë, we left the main road and entered a wooded reservation. We stopped outside a building, which we were told was once Mussolini’s hunting lodge. In fact, it was the lodge designed by his son-in-law, Italy’s former Foreign Minister, Count Ciano. The Italians had had a very dominating influence on Albania during the 1930s. They invaded it at the end of that decade. As hunting lodges go, I cannot recall it being particularly exceptional. However, as we were walking away from it across the spongy soil through the pleasantly wooded grounds, a memorable incident occurred. One member of our group, a middle-aged lady who never made much impression on me, suddenly felt unwell. Almost immediately, two medical personnel dressed in white coats, appeared from out of the blue, and escorted her back to the lodge, where they did something to help her. I have no idea whether these medics just happened to be present by chance, or whether the authorities had arranged for our group to be shadowed by a medical team just in case an incident like this should occur. As there were no further medical emergencies during our trip, except when the young couple, who were, like our English tour guide Julian, Marxist-Leninist sympathisers, got food poisoning, I was unable to ascertain whether we were being trailed by a medical team all of the time. It would not have surprised me if we had been.
2016 – During a driving trip my wife and I made on our own
In 1984, our tour group had been taken to see what was described as Mussolini’s hunting lodge. It was in fact his son-in-law Count Ciano who built it. I knew that it was somewhere near to Lezhë, but it was not easy for us to locate. To begin our search, we drove to the seaside resort of Shëngjin.
From Shëngjin, we followed the shoreline of the Adriatic southwards along a road that ran between the sea and backwater lagoons. It was lined with Mediterranean pine trees, but there was no sign of Ciano’s lodge. We stopped to ask the way several times. Everyone knew what we were talking about, but were a bit vague as to where it is.
Eventually, someone told us to head for the villages of Ishul-Lezhë and Vainn. Suddenly, I spotted an old metal sign bearing the words “Filiali Albturist, Hoteli Gjuetisi, Lezhe” (gjuetise means ‘hunter’, and Albturist was Communist Albania’s state tourist organization). We drove along the drive through a garden full of trees and parked outside what looked to me like what I saw in 1984, but it was much more run-down than I recalled. The place seemed to be dead, but eventually a waiter came to meet us. He showed us the dining room and bar, which looked as if it had been left unchanged since it was built. At first known as L’Albergo di Caccia (Italian for: Hunting lodge), this rustic-looking complex was constructed for Ciano in 1940 after the Italians had invaded Albania. The waiter told us that there were rooms to rent, and unlocked one to show us. The room looked comfortable but neglected. It had a damp musty smell. It might have been a peaceful place to stay, but rather spooky. We left this evocatively melancholic, rural spot and drove towards Lezhë.
I was pleased that we managed to find the hunting lodge that I had seen in 1984, but had not been able to enter. Entering it in 2016 was a treat. Its somewhat unkempt appearance did nothing to spoil my enjoyment of knowing that I had stepped into a building that was once used for rest and relaxation by Mussolini’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Ciano.
