Whilst on holiday at Lenno on beautiful Lake Como, Norma Rowlerson discovered that, with a bit of effort, she could discover the spot where Mussolini met his death.

It was the last day of the holiday. The weather had been perfect; day after day of sunny skies followed by starlit nights. Lake Como was as lovely as ever. From the small town of Lenno we had boarded a boat each day and revisited Bellagio, Como itself and most stops in between.


Lake Como

We had not planned to go anywhere on that last day so were not too dismayed when it poured with rain. Taking refuge at Plinio's restaurant in Lenno (the Pliny family are big in these parts – the younger and elder having been born in Como) we enjoyed a feast of newly picked wild mushrooms, selected from a basket brought to our table. We started talking to other diners and from one of them I heard a story that intrigued me.

It transpired that we were not too far away from the spot where Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta Petaci, had been shot dead.


Mussolin with Hitler

I was assured that I could walk there even though it was quite a long way, but that I could get a bus back. So, in the bucketing rain, I set off following a slippery mud path along the side of the lake, skirting the grounds of a neighbouring hotel.

After that came a very steep path of rough cobbles which led up to the main road. The rain was by then torrential and it soon became clear that my new raincoat was by no means waterproof. As I sloshed along in a pair of old loafers with rather smooth soles I also realised that I didn't have on suitable shoes either.

I followed the described dogleg across the road which led to some steep steps. The next cobbled slope was even steeper. There was no handrail either. Grabbing roots of ivy for some support and leverage, I slithered on and up eventually finding myself on another road. This was quite clearly marked as a Greenway; the route being indicated by silver stars inserted into the path, very like those marking the Queen’s Jubilee route in London.

By now I was soaked through and rather regretting my decision to have a brush with history. I wasn't even sure I was on the right track. However, I spotted some builders working on a new house and called up to them. ‘Si, si, Mussolini’, they answered, confirming that I was on the right track.

I had been told that, in order to deter any pro-Mussolini activists, there was just a sign indicating that the site was of historical interest. Not a bit of it. When I eventually reached the gates of the Villa Belmonte, there was a black cross with gold lettering, showing the place where Mussolini and his mistress were shot by Partisans.




Accounts of what happened vary and it does not seem possible to find the exact sequence of events. But it appears that Mussolini and his companion were in a convoy of German troops, heading for the Swiss border. There, they hoped to board a plane to Spain, thus avoiding a trial for war crimes.

Some people now think that the Italian dictator’s actions were nowhere near the brutal scale of those perpetrated in Germany or Japan and that Mussolini’s fate may not have been too severe.

But he was betrayed. The convoy was stopped by partisans at Dongo, on Lake Como. Mussolini was disguised in a German army greatcoat. However, he was spotted as his boots, probably black with well-polished, rounded toecaps, made him stand out from the troops. He and his companion were dragged from the lorry and then taken south to Mezzegra, just behind Lenno, where they were shot the next day.


Mussolini's birthplace

The rest, as they say, is history, the dictator’s body being taken to Milan and strung up from a lamppost.

I stopped long enough to take a few photographs and was back, soaked and muddy, in the hotel in less than an hour.