FORT LODRINO INFERIORE

 

 

After passing Fort Tagliata del Giovo, we continue along State Road N° 334 to Sassello, for about ten metres. On the left a sign indicates the road, recently asphalted, which leads to the most important building of the Giovo Defence: Fort Lodrino Inferiore. The old military road, which still has its original cobblestones, is in very bad condition in some places. We reach this road after approximately one kilometre, on the right, near where the road widens. Once we reach a fork in the road, where the asphalt ends, we have to turn left, in order to reach the mass of Fort Lodrino. The access is currently walled up, because the building still belongs to the Demanio Patrimoniale and is dangerous inside. This large edifice has three-storey barracks on the gorge.  The structures still conserve numerous original elements. Among these are the handrails of the stairs (even though they are now partly torn off), the dark wooden frames of the windows. The cistern of the basement is very dangerous, due to the fact that it is still full of water. A good part of the structures of the barracks have suffered the destruction caused by man and time. The loss of the original plaster, caused by the humidity, shows the stone and brick structures, while many original hand-made objects risk disappearing. Once we pass the barracks we find ourselves in the courtyard which seperates it from the rampart for the guns. In front of the courtyard are other rooms – storerooms, with the horse stalls. From the powerful rampart behind the barracks, we can still see the artillery emplacements (149 G cannons), half-hidden by the thick vegetation. Each emplacement was seperated by the underground ready lockers, originally accessable by lifting a metallic hatch which is still partly conserved. Some of the original doors between the rooms of the ramparts still reamain, while the toothed mechanisms of the various lifts have unfortunately become a pile of rust. In the midst of this we can find the central caponier of the building. A stone shows a date:1881, the year in which (presumably), the construction of the building was completed. This work is encircled from a ditch.

 Any eventual visits to Fort Lodrino, must be done carefully and safely. 

 

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