Dardanelles – Ingliando

On this day, Lord Byron, one of the major figures of the ‘Romantic Movement’ and generally recognised as one of the United Kingdom’s greatest poets, swam across the Hellespont. Known nowadays as the Dardanelles or the Strait of Gallipoli, the Hellespont is a natural strait and internationally significant waterway in northwestern Turkey that forms part of the continental boundary between Asia and Europe. Lord Byron’s passion for swimming is not commonly known, but having been born with a club foot, the poet found a freedom in the water that he could not experience on land and often claimed that his biggest ever achievement was swimming the Hellespont. Perhaps inspired by a story in Greek mythology in which Leander used to swim across the Hellespont every night to visit his lover Hero, Byron was determined to prove that it could be done despite the strait’s notoriously fierce currents.