My own experience with Eating Europe was in beautiful Florence, Italy. The “Sunset Food Tour” took me through the neighborhood of Santo Spirito surrounding the piazza and the Church of Santo Spirito. We made six stops over the course of three and a half hours walking along cobblestone streets and meeting several locals along the way.
Now Eating Europe is offering a tour of Lisbon, Portugal. The four-hour long experience begins in the Baixa district, with its magnificent plazas, grand avenues and boutique shopping boulevards—many of Lisbon’s major tourist attractions are located here—and continues in Mouraria, the city’s medieval quarter. The majority of the foreign population is from Bangladesh, followed by immigrants from China, India, Pakistan, and Mozambique making cuisine here quite unique.
Modern restaurants offer new-wave Portuguese dishes, old-style family-run establishments serve the classics, and there are plenty of colorful bars and food markets.
Like the Eating Europe tour I took in Florence, during the “Eats, Street Art and Undiscovered Lisbon – A Walk Through Baixa & Mouraria,” guests enjoy six culinary tastings from street food and comfort treats like the peixinhos da horta (deep fried green beans), to Portuguese classics accompanied by wines from different regions in Portugal and a beer from one of the country’s former African colonies.
True to its signature theme, to take travelers off-the-beaten-track, the new Eating Europe experience introduces guests to a restaurant resembling a hidden Moorish palace, a fado (mournful form of music born in Lisbon) house, and the pastry shop voted to have the best pastel de nata (custard tart) in town.
Other Eating Europe tour locations are in Rome, Amsterdam, Prague, London and Paris.
My Florence tour was a fun experience. Touring with other foodies, I really got a sense for the neighborhood and enjoyed the food offered. You can bet when my travels take me to other Eating Europe cities I will make time to take another food tour.
