A tireless traveler, Edward Lear expressed the magnificence of Gozo, Malta,
through delicate watercolor paintings and colorful wordplay.
Edward Lear [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Wanderlust on My Lear-ical Visit to Malta

It’s winter in Malta, 1862. Edward Lear, lover of wordplay and watercolor, is writing a letter. His phrasing echoes the rhythm of Mediterranean tides against this tiny archipelago:

“I draw constantly on the Barracca point; meaning to paint a picture thereof one day; and I wander up and down the beautiful streets of Valletta and Senglea; and rejoice in the delightful heat and the blue sky; and watch the thousand little boats skimming across the harbor at sunset.”

A winter sunset transforms Senglea, Malta into a living watercolor.
© Joyce McGreevy

As you read those words 154 years after Lear penned them, it’s a winter morning in Malta and I am here, too. Come along with me to this tiny republic just south of Sicily and east of Tunisia. See for yourself the thousand little boats, the luzzus. 

The tradition of Malta’s brightly painted wooden boats began with the ancient Phoenicians.
© Joyce McGreevy

Linger at a café table alongside the water. Leave your cellphone at the bottom of the suitcase.

Should you order a pastizzi, Malta’s savory version of stuffed pastry? You should.

If you look across Grand Harbor, up to the raised walled city of Valletta, you’ll find “the Barracca point,” better known as Upper Barrakka Gardens.

From this lofty fortress, Lear would revel in his wanderlust, gazing back at Senglea as he sketched and painted in watercolor.

Wintering and Wandering in Malta

Best known for his wordplay, the author of The Book of Nonsense was a compulsive traveler, writer, and artist. Edward Lear logged 30 volumes of travel diaries, wrote countless letters, and created thousands of watercolors.

In Malta alone, he produced 300 watercolors. He painted over many of them, possibly out of frustration. The British colonials who had enjoyed his 1866 exhibit in Malta paid him handsomely—but only in compliments. Few paintings sold.

Edward Lear’s watercolors captured specific moments. After painting this view of St. Julian’s Bay,
the poet quickly scribbled the note “5:16pm, 29 Dec. 1865.”
Edward Lear [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Lear first arrived in Malta on a ticket that he bought for 10 pounds. You’re traveling on a shoestring, too, but Malta in winter is affordable. Just rent a small flat on Triq San Frangisk (Saint Francis Street) and cook from the local markets.

“Pretty cheap fruit abounds,” Lear wrote to his sister in 1848. The Maltese are fastidious about fresh produce. This morning the greengrocer steers you away from produce that is “too old”—a mere two days. Come back this afternoon, he says, when the boats will come in and everything will be perfection.

You do and it is. “Grazzi ħafna!” Thank you so much!

Lear’s Wordplay Leads to World Play

But now it’s time to resume your quest. The call to adventure came as you researched Malta and stumbled upon two mysterious adjectives: pomskizillious and gromphiberous.

What does this wordplay describe? According to Lear, it’s the coast of Gozo. This is the northernmost island of Malta.

The name Gozo comes from the Castilian word for “joy,” a mood that combines with quiet calm in Edward Lear’s watercolors. Notice the details he added about colors and time of day.
Edward Lear [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Consider this: Malta’s mainland shows up as a tiny dot on a map of the Mediterranean. So the 26-square-mile Gozo practically qualifies as imaginary. Which makes it the ideal place to follow in the footsteps of a nonsense poet. Let wordplay lead to world play.

The easiest way to get to Gozo is to not be in a hurry. Enjoy the scenic bus ride to Cirkewwa and board the ferry that will take you to Mgarr Harbour.

Then leg it—the island’s less than nine miles long—until you reach the village of Xaghra (SHAH-rah). This is home to The Pomskizillious Museum of Toys, dedicated to the legacy of Edward Lear.

Oh, but it’s closed today. And tomorrow. Come back Saturday.

Technically, these opening hours are set in stone.
But when it’s winter in Gozo, it’s best to be chill.
© Joyce McGreevy

Into the Dice-Box of Small Events

No worries. Take a lesson from Lear, who obsessively planned his travels, but knew when to toss the itinerary:

“Put yourself as a predestinarian might say, calmly into the dice-box of small events, and be shaken out whenever circumstances ordain,” he once advised.

Your jaw drops as you view the landscape. Flinty, terraced hills soar into peaks and plateaus, some topped by ornate churches. Velvety, green valleys sweep down to startling azure seas.

The garrigue, or Mediterranean scrubland, shows off prickly pear cactus and yellow vetch, but also hides sea daffodils, spider orchids, crimson dragon’s teeth, and other floral secrets.

Edward Lear noted the “strange and wild appearance” of prickly pear cactus, which grows
“in immense luxuriance over every crag and mountainside” in Gozo.
© Joyce McGreevy

You picture Lear in the midst of it, how “he would lift his spectacles and gaze for several minutes at the scene through a monocular glass he always carried.” Then he would capture it in watercolor with astounding speed.

Even in winter, the fragrance of pines, rosemary, thyme, and citrus pervades the air. You struggle to come up with words to describe this environment.

Suddenly, you laugh out loud. You have just have had an “Oh, I see” moment: Sometimes you need the wordplay of new language to describe a new place. Like pomskizillious. And gromphiberous.

The Pomskizillious Museum of Toys never does open. But by then, you’ve learned to appreciate what locals call GMT: Gozo Maybe Time. Meanwhile, you have:

• wandered the island like Lear, a tireless walker and meticulous collector of moments.
• seen Calypso’s Cave, mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey, where a sea nymph offered Ulysses immortality if he would remain her captive.
• climbed into a “beautiful pea-green boat” at Dwerja, where you glided through sea caves and gazed up at the precipitous coastline that inspired Lear.

Poetic but precipitous: Does the cliff climber in Gozo, Malta know Edward Lear’s
cautionary limerick about the person from Cromer?
© Joyce McGreevy

This is Gozo, a place so stunning it seems imaginary. A place that inspires wanderlust, wordplay, and watercolor. It lures you with improbable beauty, inspires you to follow a nonsense poet’s trail, and hints that maybe, just maybe, you’ll attain immortality if you stay.

And really, is there anything more pomskizillious and gromphiberous than that?

The Azure Window may look familiar to “Game of Throne” fans. Several scenes were filmed on Gozo.
© Joyce McGreevy

Read Edward Lear’s travel writing and letters here. This is the source of all Lear quotations cited in this post. 

The largest collection of Edward Lear’s watercolors is archived at Harvard University. 

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.