Lear visited Crete in the spring of 1864, having first travelled to Corfu, where after the the acceptance by seventeen-year-old Prince William of Denmark of the Greek throne, he found the British preparing to leave. He left Corfu on the 4 April for Athens, but Athens was not as he remembered it and, as it was still to early to return to England, he decided to visit Crete. At the end of May he left to return to England.