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The list of restricted liquids in the security line at Lisbon airport is brief, and reads as follows: water, shampoo, aerosols, yogurt. This, I thought, peeling off the sweater I’d been wearing for my seven-hour flight in anticipation of imminent sunlight, is a city that has its priorities straight. Food plays a central role here; there’s a growing crop of Michelin-starred restaurants, if you like that sort of thing, and a hole-in-the-wall shop selling garlicky bifana pork sandwiches around seemingly every corner if you don’t. Personally, I’ve always been extremely food-motivated. So when a friend and I were looking for a relatively warm, relatively East Coast-adjacent spot in which to spend a few days off, it only made sense to put Lisbon at the top of the list.
Despite its status as a European capital and vague conversational claims that “everyone is going to Lisbon,” the city is remarkably low-key. Bustling store-lined streets quickly turn quiet and residential with one turn; you’re never far from an apartment with laundry drying on the line, Portuguese television blaring through open windows, and the smell of something unidentifiably delicious bubbling away on someone’s stove. It’s easy to lean into the local’s slower pace with days of late meals and unhurried wandering—but you also don’t really have a choice; the hilly terrain is not an ally of a rushed itinerary.
Ahead, here’s everything I packed, ate, and shopped during a six-day stint in Lisbon.
The Destination: Lisbon
The Travel Outfit: I have reached full dependency status with my White & Warren travel wrap, and now go nowhere without it; I wear it alternatingly as a shawl and a scarf. That, along with Éterne’s long-sleeve tee, made for easy layers I knew I would wear multiple times on the trip. I am also a staunch believer in plane jeans, and chose a pair from AYR, one of my go-to brands for tall sizing. They hit about mid-rise (wearing jeans on a plane is one thing, but wearing high-waisted jeans on a plane is the mark of a sociopath) and come in the perfect true blue wash.