Portugal

Concierge.com's insider take:

The best street for concentrated, only-in-Lisbon shopping is the Rua Garret, which fittingly links the city's two prime style centers: the still raffish, boho Bairro Alto and the more polished, boutique-happy Chiado. Start at the Vista Alegre flagship shop, which showcases a line of Portuguese ceramics established in 1824. Especially tempting: the set of fey figurines symbolizing Portugal's provinces, including a peasant girl balancing a basket of pastel-colored flowers on her head (20–23 Largo do Chiado; 351-21-346-1401). Just a few blocks off the Rua Garret is the Viúva Lamego, famous for the best local range of Portuguese reproduction tiles painted with everything from peasants to saints, as well as some monumental harbor scenes, featuring fishermen and sailing ships, that the sales clerks will deconstruct and pack, tile by tile, into surprisingly small take-away boxes (29 Cal. do Sacramento; 351-21-346-9692; www.viuvalamego.com). Continue east down Rua Garret to the Armazens Do Chiado, which is as chic as a mall gets and a prime local hangout (2 Rua do Carmo; 351-21-321-0600; www.armazensdochiado.com in Portuguese only). The area's most sublime surprise, though, sitting just across the street from the mall entrance, is the doll-sized Luvaria Ulisses, where the proprietor still traces your hand on paper and makes perfectly fitted butter-leather gloves in colors like saffron, pistachio, and plum (87-A Rua do Carmo; 351-21-342-0295). If you're in search of a more substantial souvenir, head to Casa dos Tapetes de Arraiolos, which specializes in the hand-embroidered Portuguese wool rugs that originated as a folkish take on oriental carpets; the flower-strewn versions can look like Whitman sampler boxes, but the more geometric patterned renditions are guilelessly elegant (116 E Rua da Imprensa Nacional; 351-21-396-3354; www.casatapetesarraiolos.com).