This article examines Byron’s journey to and arrival in Lisbon in 1809 and shows how certain incidents and encounters during his stay closely mirror those of William Beckford’s travels in Portugal more than two decades earlier, suggesting how such parallels may explain some of Byron’s allegations against the Portuguese people in Canto I of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage . Byron clearly took inspiration from Beckford’s novel Vathek in his later works; this article suggests how more of Beckford’s writings may have influenced his poetry and his travels.