British Ambassador Fiona McIlwham follows the footsteps of Lord Byron in a journey through Albania
TIRANA, Dec. 20 – “Land of Albania! Let me bend mine eyes on thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men.”
So wrote Lord Byron in his famous poem ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’, where he chronicled the journey that he and his friend and diarist J.C. Hobhouse took through the mountainous regions of southern Albania in 1809. One month ago, British Ambassador Fiona McIlwham decided to follow the footsteps of Lord Byron in a journey through Albania. She walked through Glina village up to Tepelene, visited the castle of Tepelena, then followed the cleared paths along the Vjose river, exploring ancient monasteries, castles and visiting local villages. The Ambassador’s walk followed the same path taken by Lord Byron a century ago.
From 1809 to 1811, Byron went on the Grand Tour, then customary for a young nobleman. The Napoleonic Wars forced him to avoid most of Europe, and he instead turned to the Mediterranean. He had read about the Ottoman and Persian lands as a child and later wrote, “With these countries, and events connected with them, all my really poetical feelings begin and end.” He travelled from England via Spain to Albania and spent time at the court of Ali Pasha. His visit to Albania in the autumn of that year made a lasting impression on him and is reflected in the second canto of the poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”.
