Byron Begins His Grand Tour of the Mediterranean and the Levant
Poet involved
What happened
On 2 July 1809, Lord Byron and his Cambridge friend John Cam Hobhouse embarked from England on a Grand Tour that took them through Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, Malta, Albania, and Greece, reaching Constantinople in 1810 before returning to England in 1811.
Literary impact
This transformative journey provided Byron with the geographical, cultural, and emotional material for his breakthrough masterpiece, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and awakened his lifelong philhellenism, while his Albanian adventures and swim across the Hellespont became legendary exploits that cemented his romantic-heroic persona and supplied exotic settings for his immensely popular Oriental tales.
Source: Wikipedia
