Lisbon

The way to eat in Lisbon is little and often, and always with wine. A small plate and a glass at a local place, then the same again a few hours later: keep to the usual mealtimes and the day runs out of meals. In between, the coffee is good, and its main job is getting everyone to the next round.

We have been three times and been rained on each time, in a city with close to 2,875 hours of sunshine a year, among the most in Europe. One of those trips was in November, which with December is the wettest time of year, so that one we brought on ourselves. The dry season runs from June to September, for anyone who minds. The rain barely registers when there is this much to eat and look at, and we keep coming back.

Stay in Alfama, always. It was the fishing quarter below São Jorge Castle, where fado started, and its medieval alleys came through the 1755 earthquake largely intact, which is more than Baixa, rebuilt after it, can say. It is also the most crowded with visitors, which is what happens to the right answer.

The days are for walking: along the waterfront, where the Tagus widens to meet the Atlantic, and up the cobbled hills, which are every bit as slippery in the rain as they look. Tiled façades climb the slopes, and the phone fills with photographs of them that may never be looked at again. They are beautiful enough that this seems fine. We took the tram out to Belém for a pastel de nata at the original Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém, and are still not sure the trip was worth it, since good ones are sold all over the city. Buy them, and get straight back into town. Then climb to the lookout in the trees at the top of town, feel lucky to be in Lisbon, and start working out where the next plate and glass are coming from.

Food is good everywhere in Lisbon, which makes Time Out Market's place on every list harder to explain. There is good food inside, and some fantastic local vendors, but much of it could be anywhere that has caught on to food. Not far off, in the warehouses by the waterfront, we ate very well at Sala de Corte, a Portuguese steak house. Otherwise, rather than the market, find a small family-run place with some history to it and a table outside, unless it is raining, which it probably is.