Street life still remains a big part of the port zone’s narrow alleys, which are lined with small traditional shops and restaurants, many with a big charcoal grill out front for cooking up whatever fish is in season. We sample several preparations of seasonal fish and seafood on our Song of the Sea walk in Lisbon.

Last February, we were at a Japanese pop-up dinner at Bina 37, Tbilisi’s wine cellar in the sky, organized as a tribute to Georgian-Japanese friendship and to celebrate the champion Georgian Sumo wrestler, Tochinoshin (Levan Gorgadze), soon to be promoted to the rank of Ozeki, the second highest tier in the sport. Zura Natroshvili, the owner of Bina 37, had invited a small delegation of Japanese diplomats from the embassy and set up a big screen for a live Skype chat with Tochinoshin in Tokyo while members of the Gorgadze family were at a table in front. It was a touching event, if a bit surreal.

The northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa is nestled between the western Sierra Madre Mountains and the Gulf of California – putting it between surf and high desert, and the sea doth offer bounty. Be it gigantic squid, run-of-the-mill “fish” or marlin, the sinaloenses fear not the chopping block when it comes to seafood, and the state’s devil-may-care attitude (cooking with lime instead of actual heat) comes full force at Los Sinaloenses, located in trendy Roma Sur. The scrappy refuge lights onto a seafood-based, regional cuisine that manages to stand out in a nation with more than 9,000 km of coastline. It’s characterized by an array of ceviches, cocktails and other arthropod and piscine specialties.

As the car crested a craggy hill, the first rays of golden sun peaked over the horizon, painting distant clouds the color of red wine. Tufts of gnarled olive trees and rows of grapes whizzed by the window as we approached the farm, outrunning the quickly approaching sun. We left Thessaloniki at 5:30 a.m. to beat the Greek summer’s heat, something of concern for both workers – and oregano plants, our destination’s star crop. Michalis and Anastasia, owners of Aetheleon, were prepared for the day’s harvest. With every rising degree, minuscule droplets of moisture and essential oils seep from the oregano in an attempt to cool them down. The plants’ sweat-like response can be easily smelled, the aromatic wafts upon the breeze a prelude to the frenzied buzzing of hordes of happy bees following the fragrant trail.

We’ve got a thing for small, family-run spots in Naples, particularly those that are multigenerational. If a restaurant or bakery or producer has been open for at least a century and has always stubbornly stood in the same place, continuity and quality of product are all but guaranteed. Take, for instance, Cantina del Gallo in Materdei. Established in 1898 and run by four generations of the Silvestri family, this is one of the few real outdoor taverns left in Naples. Over the years, this cozy, simple spot has attracted artists, intellectuals, musicians, travelers and many Neapolitan students looking for good food at reasonable prices.

There we are at Bodega Carlos, enjoying a homey and delicious batch of crispy fried anchovies and succulent stewed pork cheeks, when we suddenly hear birdsong. We look up, but neither canary nor nightingale can be seen flying around the high-ceilinged bodega-restaurant. But then the birdsong instantly switches to a sound we can best describe as a falling whistle, like the one that accompanies Wile E. Coyote as he falls from a cliff. Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it a smartphone ringing with infinite improvised melodies? No, it is Carlos Estrada Roig, the owner of this friendly neighborhood bodega and an expert whistler.

Roaming the narrow cobblestoned alleys of Centro Storico in Naples, we visit a limoncello production lab in a most unusual place. The dazzling bright yellow drink, most often served chilled, is particularly welcome on a hot summer day.

Shanghai doesn’t fit the traditional (if often false) narrative that urban spaces consist of “good” neighborhoods and “bad” neighborhoods. Crime is not a major concern for most residents in the city, and truly derelict areas are few and far between. However, the varying levels of development and infrastructure create different zones that deeply impact residents’ lifestyles in ways that are more extreme than in other more developed countries. On a recent weekend road trip to Moganshan, a mountainous oasis of bamboo forests just a few hours from Shanghai, the starkness of the city’s “development zones” came to light as we made our way home to the tree-lined streets of the former French Concession

The first and most vivid impression one has of Piraeus is its port: bustling, ugly and uninviting. Just a place you have to endure in order to get to your destination, usually a beautifully serene Greek island. Piraeus, however, is definitely an exciting place for anyone looking for a culinary adventure, as it is a melting pot of cultures with many interesting places hidden in the backstreets, away from tourists. The whole area next to Hadjikyriakeion for example, a girls’ orphanage built in the 19th century, is well known to locals for its humble, yet high-quality tavernas, serving fresh fish and simple meze all year round.

Our go-to breakfast to fuel up for a day of walking around the backstreets in Athens is fresh-baked koulouri, an iconic street food, paired here with cheese and olives. But we don’t go overboard, as there are many more Greek delicacies to follow!

Every time we venture down to Turkey’s Çukurova region, particularly its largest cities of Mersin and Adana, we leave more intrigued than we were on the previous visit. In much closer proximity to Cyprus and Beirut than Izmir and Istanbul, these are truly southern Mediterranean cities, with blooming flowers, incredible citrus fruits, towering palm trees and scorching summers. Major cities with keen urban identities, they’re inhabited by highly diverse populations and characterized by architectural styles not seen further north. And did we mention the cuisine? Adana is the undisputed capital of kebab, and the city of Antakya is among the finest culinary destinations in the country. While Mersin may take a backseat to these regional heavyweights, it boasts its own delicacy, tantuni, which was our first source of inspiration for taking the trip south. We quickly learned that the coastal city of one million boasts a number of other culinary specialties that for the most part have not made it outside the region.

It wasn’t very long ago that finding a vegan restaurant in Mexico City was like finding a friend on the city’s overcrowded metro during rush hour (read: impossible). In fact, until this decade there were no exclusively vegan eateries in Mexico’s bustling capital. This is not to suggest that vegan options weren’t available, but exploring the city as a vegan could be a tricky business, and veganism was a little-understood concept. So unusual an idea it was, that journalist-cum-chef Mariana Blanco was often called a loser or perdedora by friends who found her animal-free and plant-rich lifestyle to be at odds with what they knew. So when she opened the first vegan restaurant in the city, and indeed the first in Latin America, she called it Los Loosers.

For some inexplicable reason, leche merengada, or meringue milk, a traditional Spanish summer drink, has fallen out of favor over the past few decades – industrial ice creams and sodas, with their multicolored flavors, bubbles and fantasy frozen shapes, have seduced local palates, making this monochrome drink pale in comparison. Well, we say that it’s time to shine the spotlight back on the démodé but delicious and nutritious leche merengada and to revive a drink that was considered opulent in numerous Spanish cities back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and documented in recipe books from as early as the 18th century.

An employee at Sirvent tops the shop’s artisanal ice cream with bright red candied cherries. Sirvent is one of Barcelona’s turronerías (also called torronerías), so-called because they dedicate themselves to making artisanal nougat (turrón) in the winter. But come summer, many flock to them for a cooling ice cream or horchata.

The medieval Skhvilo fortress prison overlooks the ancient village of Samtavisi and the rest of Shida Kartli’s Kaspi region, a rolling expanse of contours that in July are wrapped in overtones of green and gold under a sky that would make Montana buckle in envy. From here we can see the Mtkvari River Valley spreading east to Tbilisi, west towards Surami and south to the Trialeti Range. Even on blistering summer days you can count on a breeze of honeyed air brushing down from the high Caucasus suggesting that if the Garden of Eden had a vineyard, this is where it would be. This particular micro-zone is called Charmants – charming – a name French viticulturists gave it in the late 19th century, when local noblemen invited them to select the best areas to grow vines.