Lisboa: The Home of Fado and Azulejos.

It was an easy departure from Porto on Sunday morning. The hardest part was getting our luggage down the three flights of dangerously steep and narrow stairs. Once that was achieved, it was a quick Uber to the train station, coffee in the café across the road, and then onto the train to Lisboa, arriving two and a half hours later in the early afternoon. Lisboa feels immediately grungier than Porto.

Our Airbnb is in the Moorish Quarter of the city. It’s very multicultural here, and people are spilling out onto the narrow, steep, cobblestone streets. Thankfully, we only have one flight of stairs to tackle to get to our room, where we leave our luggage and immediately head out exploring. Just up and around the corner, we arrive at a family-run café recommended by our host. It’s open, but they say they are just closing. Then the father gestures for us to sit, and they decide to put off closing for us. We enjoy home-cooked soup, whole grilled sea bass, and a garden salad.

After lunch, we explore the area on foot, with Robyn trying to find places she had visited nine years earlier. There is a great park many steep streets above our accommodation, offering a commanding view of the city. There's a great vibe here, with buskers, a small market, and bars. We make a pact to return here at sunset. On Robyn's walk down memory lane, we pass a very small restaurant. It has people crowded in the doorway, and the sound of Fado wafts out onto the street. We are lucky enough to get a small table for two at the back of the restaurant, just two meters from the guitarists and the numerous Fado singers, who each take turns singing three or four songs. Fado is traditional Portuguese folk music; there are no choruses in the songs, just one long, heartfelt verse of misery, love, and loss. We didn’t need to Google to understand they weren't singing about sardines—the emotion had more depth than the Vinho Verde we were drinking. On our first day, we’ve already ticked off a major "must-do" for Lisbon.

Our days are spent exploring the town on foot. The streets here are steeper and the lanes narrower than in Porto. Our leg muscles have clearly adapted to walking on inclines. At our Airbnb, we discover a postcard asking people not to buy azulejos (the beautiful ceramic tiles that adorn most buildings here) from flea markets or antique stores, as most of them have been illegally removed from buildings. On our walks, we begin to notice bare patches on walls where tiles have been removed. We had seen them before, but they didn’t register as anything significant. Then, one morning while exploring a local market, we notice many stalls selling old azulejos.

The options for viewing the sunset are varied and spectacular. One evening, we watch the setting sun from a rooftop bar, and the next evening from a crowded hilltop park on the eastern side of the city. The park is packed with both locals and tourists. We manage to get a table close to the railing and enjoy some beers with a view stretching across the city to the sun setting in the west.

The Airbnb has four rooms with a shared kitchen and bathrooms, providing plenty of opportunities to meet and talk with other travelers. The most interesting were a mother and daughter from Egypt who were traveling through Europe. They told us about a terrible snatch-and-run they had witnessed on La Rambla in Barcelona, and now they were ultra-cautious when going out.

We explore Lisbon's version of La Rambla, which runs off Praça do

Comércio on the water's edge. It's a very touristy area with lots of restaurants and bars. The further you walk into the city from Praça do Comércio, the less touristy and more grungy it becomes. One evening, we find a small bar with no seating inside that only sells shots of ginjinha, a type of cherry brandy. Shots are 1.5 euros each, and once you have your shot, you need to step out onto the street to drink it. We join several people on the footpath—some are tourists, but most are Portuguese. The bar is an institution and the first of its kind in Lisbon.

After enjoying our final sunset from the park on the eastern hills, we scrambled down the steep and narrow lanes to have dinner at the Food Temple, one of our host’s recommendations. It's a vegetarian restaurant with a unique table design that allows the tables to straddle the stairs out front. We spent our final evening in Lisbon enjoying delicious food and wine on the stairs at the end of a narrow cobblestone laneway. In the morning, we are booked to take the train to Loulé in the south.

Next stop Loule....