Eating
Markets, and which ones are still markets
Some are working food markets, some are food halls for visitors, and the distinction matters for what you get.
Clara Mendonça
Contributing writer, Coffee in Lisbon
Clara writes about day trips and the regional rail and ferry network that makes them possible.
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17 articles
Eating
Why the custard tart is a coffee accessory
The famous pastry is engineered around contrast, and eating it wrong is the most common way to be underwhelmed.
Eating
Bread, and the shape of a bakery day
Bread here is bought in small quantities more than once a day, and the timing is the whole reason it tastes good.
Day Trips
The ferry is a direction, not an excursion
Crossing the river is an ordinary commuter journey that happens to have the best view in the region.
Day Trips
Coffee in a small town is a different institution
An hour out of the city, the cafe stops being one option among many and becomes the centre of a place.
Eating
Eating alone here is genuinely easy
The counter culture and the lunch rhythm make solo eating unremarkable in a way it is not everywhere.
Eating
What is good in which month
Seasonality here is sharper than in countries that import everything, and it decides what is worth ordering.
Day Trips
Walking the coast, and what the wind decides
The cliff paths west of the city are exposed, sustained and much more affected by wind than by temperature.
Day Trips
Timing a day trip around heat and closing hours
The two things that ruin a day out are the middle of the afternoon and the middle of the summer day, and both are predictable.
Day Trips
How to walk a historic garden properly
The estate gardens around the region are designed sequences, and the standard mistake is to walk them like a park.
Eating
The couvert, and the plates you did not order
Bread, olives and small dishes arrive before you ask for anything. They are chargeable, they are optional, and declining them is…
Eating
Salt cod is a technology, not a fish
A country with a long coastline built its defining dish around a fish caught in cold northern waters. The reason is preservation…
Eating
Why the cooking uses few spices and a great deal of three things
A country that ran the spice trade cooks with restraint. Olive oil, garlic and coriander do most of the work, and the reason is not…
Day Trips
Sintra is wet because of where the hill stands
The mist, the moss and the strange palaces are all consequences of one piece of geography. Understanding it explains what to wear…
Day Trips
Ocean beach or river beach: two different days
The coast west of the city and the sheltered water inside the river mouth behave nothing alike. Choosing wrongly is the most common…
Day Trips
The great monasteries sit in small towns, and there is a reason
Enormous religious buildings stand in places with a few thousand residents. The mismatch is the interesting part, and it explains…
Day Trips
Cork country, and what a stripped tree tells you
An hour inland the landscape turns to widely spaced oaks with bare red trunks. The spacing, the bark and the numbers painted on…