Lisbon

Lisbon is built of hills, tiles and longing: azulejo façades catching Atlantic light, yellow trams grinding up grades that would alarm a mule, and fado — the music of missing things — leaking from Alfama's doorways at dusk. The Tejo below is less a river than a slow sea, and the city has spent five centuries watching ships leave from its banks and singing about it.

The sensible traveller climbs Alfama to the Castelo in the morning shade, rides tram 28 once — for the geometry, not the transport —, and collects miradouros the way other cities collect museums: each hilltop terrace a framed thesis on light. Baixa's grid and Chiado's cafés fill the afternoon; Belém earns a half day for the tower, the monastery and the custard tarts at the source, still warm.

The Guide's honesty: the hills are real and the cobbles are polished — wear rubber soles, not opinions —; a restaurant's unrequested appetizers are not free: wave them off or pay cheerfully; and tram 28 at noon is a pickpocket's office party. Ride at eight, or walk the route and keep your pockets boring.