It’s uncertain if Lord Byron ever visited Gozo, but he certainly made it to Malta—and was less than impressed. In his poem Farewell to Malta, Byron famously wrote, “Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs! (How surely he who mounts you swears!),” capturing his disdain for the capital, Valletta.
Perhaps it’s this sentiment that leads many to misattribute the phrase “Yells, Bells, and Smells” to him. In reality, it was coined by an anonymous Scottish soldier and shared with actor David Niven when he arrived for an army posting in 1929. Niven later included it in his excellent autobiography, The Moon’s a Balloon.