Yes, stomach and feet all took a pounding in Lisbon.

Portugal's capital on the Tagus estuary still has areas of decay you will not find in other western European capitals. It will change. The picturesque, honest edifices with crumbling tile facades will be honed into spick and span modern dwellings and offices as money comes in. The day after I left, the African and European leaders arrived for their summit, and the next week the European Treaty was signed in adjacent Belém's magnificent Mosteiro dos Jerónimos.

Some of the areas the African potentates did not see would have reminded them of conditions at home. Not far from my plush and charming boutique hotel was a ruinous area, bright with colourful graffiti in the sunlight, spooky at night.

This mix of old and new makes Lisbon more interesting for the urban wanderer. Here you escape the glittering reminder of cash-generating conglomerates. Instead, there are shop fronts in need of paint and mortar, not far from their modernised neighbours. It is a mix that appeals to me.

Suddenly a narrow dark street will open on to a broad plaza, flooded with daylight and bustle. Grand avenues remind us of Lisbon's proud history, a seafaring nation with few equals, of discoveries on the other side of the Atlantic and its colonies in Asia.

The monuments to its heroes are a silent eloquent link to great times. Trams still clatter along, up and down the city's seven hills and along the waterfront. It's a cheap ride. Go to Belém, where on a Sunday the bric a brac stalls are a must and then lunch nearby in the open air at a pavement café. Here is the famous Belém Tower that guarded the river entrance. Now it is a museum. There is the Jerónimos monastery, and the nation's most renowned maker of custard tarts.

Ah, yes, the stomach. The fish is just as compelling as when I first visited Portugal nearly 30 years ago. Portions are still huge and the flesh is fresh and full of flavour. Pity that fish stocks have dwindled in those decades.

A meal will start with servings of cheese, ham, olives, bread, maybe some fish paté. You will not have requested any of this, nor is it usually free. If you don't wish to pay a few euros per head for each appetiser, just leave it, as if you could resist.

I'd say the cost of eating out is cheaper even than in neighbouring Spain and there are other differences. No tapas bar culture, for one thing, and they eat earlier in the evening. And they eat very well. The Rio Coura is a family café-restaurant named for the river in the north west.

It's a simple place on the hill road back to our hotel, easily ignored for brighter lit places. Some tables, a bar counter, then through a door, the kitchen. A one month old baby boy squawks in his pram, tended by his adoring mother. Father, in his early 20s, keeps popping back from bar and kitchen duties. His father runs the place taking orders, bringing the food. Towards closing at 10pm his mother appears, smart in camel hair coat. We are the
only tourists.

Oh how nice it is, not to be reminded of Essex or wherever the quartet were from at a previous restaurant. The £6.50 menu starts with the olives and things, then butternut squash soup, moves on to platters of the catch of the day (hake, bass, bream) a milky pudding. Wine or beer and coffee are included.

During the day, from breakfast to early evening, Lisboans have to run the gauntlet of the patisseries selling the famous custard tarts. Of course, they stop and buy them still warm. The pastry is sweet and flaky, the centre is hard to describe, except that it's not an English custard tart filling.

Recipes vary. The one at Pastéis de Belém is known only to the family, who from a guarded room allocate the mixture to the bakery floor. On a normal day they make 12,500, doubling towards the weekend and on some Sundays reaching 50,000. You can see the staff at full tilt through a