A Day in Sintra

August 14, 2024September 13, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

It would have been nice to sleep in after our Taylor Swift concert, but our travel time was too limited and we had too much to see! We didn’t get up super early, but we wanted to go to Sintra before leaving Lisbon, so we had a hotel breakfast and then went to the train station to try and catch a train to Sintra.

Sintra is only 45 minutes outside of Lisbon and it is a popular tourist destination. There are a few options for how to get there and we just relied on Google to select the best one. Getting the train ticket was a little confusing and we were tight on time – the automated machines are very outdated, so I recommend just lining up to get a paper ticket. By the time we caught the train and got to the main station in Sintra, it was around 11am.

Sintra is an interesting place – there’s a small town with a very quaint historic centre, but it felt more like a collection of historic sites scattered around the surrounding mountainside. The roads to each site are very narrow and winding, so the traffic can get quite bad. Sintra is a full day excursion, so I definitely recommend getting there earlier than we did. I’d aim for 9am rather than 11am.

An earlier arrival would have allowed us to get at least one historic site in before the crowds, but no such luck. There are 5 key sites people like to see: the National Palace, Regaleira Park, Monserrate Park, Pena Palace, and the Moorish Castle. If you include the historic centre, then I guess there’s actually 6 sites. The cheapest way to get around is to buy a day pass for the two tourist buses (one pass). One bus goes to the National Palace/City Centre, Pena Palace, and Moorish Castle, while the other bus also goes to the National Palace/City Centre, and the two parks. The first bus runs really frequently (every 10-15 minutes), while the second bus runs every 30 minutes.

Given that there are so many sites, it’s recommended to get timed entries online. We booked the Regaleira Park online, but it’s just general admission all day and there was no line, so it didn’t save us much time. But we also had timed entry to Pena Palace and I don’t think we would have been able to go into the palace without pre-purchasing that ticket.

Because our timed entry to Pena Palace was at 2:30pm, we decided to do Quinta da Regaleira first. This was a bit annoying because we just missed the bus and the next one was late coming, but we made it to the park shortly before noon. The park is really nice and we liked exploring it, but one thing I found was missing in Sintra was large scale context. There was information about the interesting features in the park, but the signage failed to answer the general question “why is all this here?”

Quinta da Regaleira is basically a huge park with all kinds of unique engineering and architectural features spread out around the park. We later asked our tuktuk driver about it and he explained that the land has had various wealthy owners over the years who have built up the infrastructure, particularly when it went through the ownership of the freemasons. At some point, it was designated as a park and is part of the greater Sintra UNESCO world heritage site, which was established in 1995.

There is a lot to explore in the park, but I would say the two most striking pieces of architecture are the Regaleira Palace and the Initiation Well. The Palace is an ornate building that I believe was constructed as a country home in the 1800’s. The Palace is cool, but the Initiation Well was a much more compelling piece of engineering for me. The rest of the tourists seemed to agree and we had to queue for about 30 minutes just to walk into the well.

It is a large circular structure with an ornate design and staircase that descends into the earth. It feels very deep when you are going down into the well, but it is built on the hillside, so the perspective of entering from the top of the well contributes to this sense of scale. Once you reach the bottom, you can explore a series of tunnels through the hillside and then you eventually pop out further down the mountain without ever climbing back up any steps. It’s a bit disorientating, but a very cool experience.

When we finished with the park, we decided to give ourselves a lot of time to get to Pena Palace. There’s no overlap in the two bus lines, so to avoid taking 2 buses, we opted to take a tuktuk instead. We thought this would be the faster option, but I’m not really sure. Likely it was faster than waiting for 2 separate buses, but it still took quite a long time because the traffic around the mountain is one way, which means it takes a considerable amount of time to get from the Regaleira to the Palace at midday.

That said, we had a lot of fun in the tuktuk. It was mildly terrifying, but our driver was very enthusiastic and brought us to a few lookouts along the way before dropping us at the entrance. From there, it’s a 10 minute walk up the mountain to get to Pena Palace. The Palace is extravagant! It’s set atop a rocky outcrop and is painted in bright yellow and red. It’s a striking building and 100% worth visiting. Anyone can walk up to the palace and walk around the grounds, but you have to have an entry ticket to go into the palace.

We got there just in time for our 2:30pm entry. To be honest, it’s cool to walk inside the castle, but the outside of the palace was visually more interesting to me. The building itself is striking, and you can do a circular walk along the battlements of the palace, which is very cool. I’m glad I got to do both, but if you miss out on the timed entry, I still think it’s worth walking around the outside of the Palace. The building was originally a monastery, but at some point it was taken over by the Portuguese Monarchy as one of their homes. It was incredibly busy. I think it’s always busy, but I’m sure the inordinate number of Swifties visiting the city probably made it worse.

Our last stop of the day was the Moorish Castle. You can see Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle from all over Sintra and I’m glad we decided to do both. It’s just a 10-minute walk along the road to get to the Moorish Castle from Pena Palace. It was a lot later in the day by the time we got there, so we had no trouble just buying a ticket at the gate and it was relatively empty inside (in comparison to Pena Palace at least).

I think the Moorish Castle was probably my favourite of all the sites we visited. Unlike Pena Palace, which had been converted from monastery to Palace, the Moorish Castle still retained most of its history. It’s the oldest site in Sintra and was constructed in the 12th century. It was primarily a military establishment, but over time it was abandoned as people moved down the mountain to live in what’s now the historic centre.

The Moorish Castle was my favourite because it felt very old. There’s an ancient chapel and it’s encircled by tall, stone walls and battlements. You can walk around the perimeter of the castle and it felt like very classic castle architecture. The views were amazing and I felt like I was walking around something much more grand. While Pena Palace wouldn’t have existed when the Moorish Castle was built, today there’s a fantastic view of it from the walls.

We finished the day by taking the bus back to the historic centre. We did a little bit of exploring and sampled Ginja, a local cherry liqueur that’s sold in the street in an edible chocolate cup. It was sweet and we purchased some to take home. I definitely think the historic centre is an attraction on it’s own. It has a lot of beautiful buildings packed onto the hillside and there are tons of little shops and restaurants to explore. So I definitely recommend making time for it if possible.

We found a restaurant for dinner and dined on Feijoada stew and salt cod. During our walking tour in Lisbon, we learned that Newfoundland has actually been borrowing a lot of its cuisine from the Portuguese. Salt cod is very popular in Portugal and we had to listen while our guide explained the process of salt drying cod in the sun and told us that most of Portugal’s fish comes from Norway or Canada, which we are well aware of. So Emily had the cod in Sintra and I had Feijoada, a dish I last had in Brazil. It’s basically a meat stew, but I was intrigued to find a lot of salt meat in it, something also frequently used in Newfoundland cuisine!

We also sampled the Vino Verde, which is “green wine” and is unique to Portugal. The wine is not actually green of course, it’s a white wine, but the grapes are picked earlier, which is where it takes its name from. After gorging on food and wine, we caught the train back to Lisbon and got back to our hotel around 8pm. So it’s definitely a big day to go to Sintra, but it was a very eventful one! Next up is our trip to the Azores!

Taylor Swift in Lisbon

August 7, 2024September 13, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

It’s been a very eventful year for me from a traveling perspective. I went to Patagonia in mid-February with Seth and then 3 months later I took another 2 weeks off to go traveling with Emily. Our original plan had been to go to Greece last September, but then something came up and we cancelled that trip. So I ended up with two major trips back-to-back, which was somewhat overwhelming, but also awesome, so I can’t complain.

The reason we cancelled our original trip is because Emily got tickets to see Taylor Swift in Lisbon! Like most people, we failed to get tickets to see Taylor on her US tour and couldn’t afford the resale tickets, so Emily signed up for a ton of presales in Europe and managed to score 4 tickets in Lisbon! The tickets were for May 25, so we planned a whole trip around the concert. We had a little over 2 weeks and we planned to start in Lisbon for the concert, and then we each picked a destination for the subsequent 2 weeks of the trip. Emily picked the Azores and I picked Marrakech, so stay tuned for that!

But first off, Lisbon. We were traveling from opposite sides of Canada, but the easiest way to get there was for both of us to meet in Toronto and then we caught a direct flight to Lisbon. It was an overnight flight, so we got as much sleep as we could and arrived in Lisbon around noon. It’s only a 3.5 hour time difference for Emily and she managed okay, but it was an 8 hour time difference for me, so my body had no idea what was going on.

As soon as we landed in Lisbon, you could feel the energy. Our pilot welcomed all the Taylor Swift fans to Lisbon and our uber driver started off by saying, “the traffic is really bad today! I don’t know if you heard, but we have a big concert happening this weekend”! We got dropped off at our hostel in central Lisbon, where we had booked a private room. The temperature was around 24 degrees, which we thought would be perfect, but it’s quite humid in Portugal, so it felt a lot hotter.

We took a quick shower and then decided to go out exploring the city. We easily could have gone to bed, but that would not have helped the jetlag, so we pushed through. We meandered through the city and wasted no time sampling some pastries. Our cousins, Andrew and Emma, were using our other two tickets for the concert and were at the tail end of their Europe Trip, so we met up with them and toured the Lisbon Cathedral and went in search of dinner.

Taylor was playing her first show the same night, so as we walked around the city, it was easy to spot all the fans. The streets were filled with women dressed in glitter, sequins, and cowboy boots. Everyone was smiling and there was just a really great vibe in the city! Europe actually has ticket resale laws that limit price gouging, and Emily tried to convince me that we should get tickets online for night 1 too, but we opted to catch up on sleep to prepare for our concert instead.

The next day, we did a walking tour in the morning to learn more about the city. It’s actually my second time visiting Lisbon, but the first time was in 2012 and I honestly remembered nothing. We learned a lot about Portugal’s history, of which I didn’t know that much. Like most of Europe, Lisbon is a very old city and was originally settled by the Moors, which is a term used to apply to Muslim Europeans, Arab, and Berber people. Lisbon was part of the Kingdom of Portugal for a long time, until Napoleon invaded in the early 1800’s, and the Portuguese monarchy fled to Brazil. The history is already a little foggy, but it was a pretty short lived occupation, and the monarchy returned until revolution in 1910, when the last king and his heir were assassinated.

The most interesting thing I learned was that following the revolution, Portugal lived under dictatorship for 50 years between 1926 and 1974. It was the longest European dictatorship and it ended in 1974 when there was a military coup known as the Carnation Revolution. Since then, Portugal has been a modern democracy.

Lisbon is a very hilly city and we visited several historical spots. It was also interesting to learn about Lisbon’s history of earthquakes, the biggest of which was a 9.0 earthquake that occurred in 1755 and leveled most of the city. There is still some architecture left which predates this earthquake.

After the walking tour, we returned to our hostel to get ready for the concert! There were other Swifties on our walking tour and we’d learned that the previous night had been a bit of a disaster in terms of venue management. The concert was late starting because there hadn’t been enough security to process all the fans. People had to queue for 3+ hours in the hot sun to get into the stadium. So we decided to go pretty early to the stadium and were prepared with sunscreen, hats, and water.

We met Emma and Andrew on the Metro before the concert, but fortunately, we didn’t have any trouble accessing the stadium for our concert. They’d resolved whatever kinks had been present the previous evening and we were able to get in the stadium with no issues. Our seats were in the lower bowl and we were super lucky to discover that we had end row seats right next to the bathroom. Plus, our seats were under a bit of an overhang, so we had shade from the sun too! The bathroom situation at the concert is really interesting. At our stadium, all the sections were blocked off from one another, so there were only 4 bathrooms that we could use. 3 of the 4 bathrooms were male – the stadium has designated 1 of the male bathrooms as female, but fans seem to have made the decision that all bathrooms are unisex during the concert! We loved it because, of course, there’s a lot more women at the show.

The concert was obviously fantastic! It completely lived up to all the hype and we had the absolute best time! It’s just such a great vibe. Everyone is really happy and friendly. I’ve heard some European fans are mad about the number of North Americans coming to the show, but we didn’t experience that at all. We wandered the concourse trading friendship bracelets and generally had a great time talking to fans from all over the world!

Taylor’s stamina for the show is incredible. I barely had time to pee during one of the transitions, so I don’t know how she manages with all the wardrobe changes! It’s hard to pick a favourite era because they are all wonderful. I loved the anticipation at the start of Lover; the energy of Red; and the vibe of Folkmore. It’s also incredible to watch her perform her new TTPD songs, but the surprise songs were probably the highlight of the concert for me. Before the concert, we’d all fantasized about our dream surprise songs. Emily wanted anything from Fearless, Emma wanted Long Live, and I said I’d die if she sang You’re on Your Own, Kid.

She started with a mash-up of The Tortured Poets Department and Now That We Don’t Talk on the guitar, which was great. But I couldn’t believe it when she started playing You’re On Your Own, Kid on the piano!! I know she plays this song a lot, but I couldn’t believe I was so lucky as to get my first pick! I admit, I did tear up a little. Then she did a mash up with Long Live and Emma died a little inside too!

It could have been pandemonium trying to get the train home after the concert, but it was pretty orderly all things considered. We didn’t know that merch wouldn’t be for sale in the venue (only outside), so Emily and I lined up for merchandise after the show, but I’d recommend getting it before if you have the chance. Fortunately, we were right by the exit, so we beat most of the crowd.

I know it’s not affordable to see Taylor Swift in North America. We paid under $200 CAD each for our tickets in Lisbon, so pairing the concert with a holiday was 100% the way to go. I never thought I’d fly so far away to see a concert, but it was an experience and I would definitely do it again! It’s Taylor’s Summer for sure! Check back next week to hear about our experience in Sintra.

Skiing in Levi

May 10, 2023August 13, 2024 / Maria / Leave a comment

The last segment of our trip was to another small town in Lapland called Levi. It’s only about an hour from Yllas, so we drove there after our visit to the snow hotel. While I didn’t care to sleep in a snow hotel, I was keen to try out one of the glass huts. There are several different glass huts around the region and as the name suggests, they are basically glass roofed hotel rooms. Unsurprisingly, they are not cheap, so I shopped around a bit before deciding on the Northern Lights Huts in Levi, which are pretty new and the cheapest I could find in the region.

It was a great choice! It’s located on a reindeer farm about 20 minutes away from Levi town. There’s 10 glass huts on the property and we had one booked for 2 nights. The huts are very new and really nice on the inside, so it was nice to relax for a little bit after a busy day of dogsledding. We returned to town for supper, but otherwise had a chill evening.

My primary motivation in booking the hut was as a last ditch attempt to make it easy to see the northern lights. Fortunately, we’d already seen them 4 nights in a row by then, so it removed a lot of the pressure. The geomagnetic storm was winding down and the KP was back around 2-3 for our last two nights, so I wasn’t sure if we would see them. On the first night it was pretty cloudy and we didn’t see anything before bed. The app said the clouds would clear around midnight, so I set an alarm and we woke up at midnight and could see them from our bed! So it ended up working out nicely because I definitely would not have trudged down to the lake in Akaslompolo at midnight, but it was nice to wake up and watch them inside for a bit and then go back to sleep.

On our last full day in Lapland we had planned a second skiing day. Levi resort is bigger than Yllas and fortunately the wind storm had moved on and the entire resort was open! While Yllas only had two faces to access the mountain, Levi had at least 4. There are two main lifts, one from Levi town and one from the south face, which is where we opted to start. Levi was busier than Yllas, so it took a while to get our rentals, but after that there was a lot of terrain to choose from.

I recall there being at least 3 chair lifts and 1 gondola, but pretty much all the other lifts were T-bars and there must have been at least a dozen of them! The mountain is completely bare on top, so you can pretty much ski down it in any direction. Each T-bar only services about 2-3 runs, so we slowly made our way around the mountain. The terrain was simple enough that we could ski any run on the mountain, so we just explored as much as we could. It’s a very different experience than skiing in Canada, but I enjoyed it more than Yllas.

We had lunch at a small restaurant on the east side of the mountain, but my favourite skiing terrain was on the west side. While the temperatures had been between -10 to -20 degrees celsius when we arrived in Rovaniemi, it had warmed up a lot over the week and it was around 0 degrees when we skied Levi. It felt much warmer and it even starting to feel a bit like Spring. There was no fresh powder on either mountain that we skied, but because it’s generally cold and dry in Lapland, neither mountain was icy.

We discovered a pancake restaurant in Levi that I was excited to try for dinner on our last night. So we enjoyed some giant savoury pancakes before retiring to our hut for the evening. The KP was only 2 on the last night, so I wasn’t expecting much even though it was clear, but the aurora treated us a real show! I guess because we’re so far north, you can still get a very active sky, even with a low KP.

At first the lights seemed pretty normal and similar to other nights, but around 9 or 10pm they got incredibly active and despite having the glass roof, I couldn’t resist going outside to photograph them. The lights were pulsing from horizon to horizon and we couldn’t catch the full scope of them from inside. It was probably the second best night we’d seen them and it was a real treat to witness them swirling across the sky one last time. Seth had kind of gotten over the allure by that point, but the northern lights captivated me every single night I saw them. I admit I got a little obsessed and since I returned home, I’ve been plotting when I can see them again.

The aurora goes through cycles throughout the night, but they also go through larger cycles throughout time. We’re currently heading into a period of increased geomagnetic activity for the next few years, so it should be easier to see them over the next 5 years, so if there’s ever been a time to plan an aurora trip, this is it!

Our last day in Finland was pretty boring. We enjoyed our buffet breakfast at the hotel and then drove two hours back to Rovaniemi to catch our flight. One thing we learned is that the Finns all have a secret sweet tooth and eat a lot of candy and chocolate. Finnish chocolate is really creamy and delicious, so we stopped by the grocery store on the way back to stock up. We had an uneventful flight back to Helsinki and returned to Katie’s apartment for our last night.

Katie took us to a ramen restaurant for our last meal and we spent an hour walking around the city before returning to her place for one last sauna session. She’s scheduled to finish her degree before the end of the year, but she’s also planning to stay in Helsinki and look for work, so who knows, we might be back again in the future.

Finland is probably not the first place that comes to mind when you’re planning a holiday, much less a winter holiday, but I really loved it. The aurora certainly made it memorable, but even without the aurora, it’s a cool place and I liked a lot of their progressive policies. I would definitely come back in the winter to chase the aurora again – I’m not sure I’d visit Lapland in the summer, but I’d consider returning to Helsinki in the summer and maybe tack on a visit to Norway or Sweden to do some hiking. Overall we had a great trip and would definitely recommend!