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Sintra Travel Guide

07.22.17

The next city we visited in Portugal was Sintra and it was amazing! Sintra is a very popular tourist attraction, and even locals go out to the city on the weekends for a perfect day trip. We didn’t want to take our car there and deal with the traffic and parking so we parked it in Lisbon, near the train station and took the train to Sintra. Since we were already used to the transit (we had taken it to downtown Lisbon the day before), this was the perfect option for us. Also, if you havn’t already, make sure to check out the Lisbon travel guide blog post first! Now on to the Sintra Travel Guide!

We left early in the morning because we wanted to make sure we were the first on the 434 bus in Sintra. And we sure were. The first bus leaves the station at 9:15! So, if you want to take transit to Sintra, make sure to get off on the last train stop which is Sintra. Then, right near the train station exit is the famous 434 bus that everyone takes to travel around Sintra. The cost of the bus is 5.50 euro per person and it is a hop on hop off bus. This bus starts at the train station, passes through the town center and then goes to the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace before returning back to the train station.

One thing to note is, it is very difficult to walk to all these places as the streets are very steep and the distance between them is also quite long. So, what we did was take the 434 bus to the Moorish Castle, explored around the castle, then hopped back on the bus to get off at Pena Palace and finally take the bus back to the city centre, from where after we finished exploring, we walked back to the train station (10 min downhill walk away).

So our first stop on the Sintra travel guide was the Moorish Castle and it was beautiful! In fact, everything in the city of Sintra was magical. It has so much history, beauty and greenery, along with thousands of tourists 😛

We bought our tickets for the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace here and if you buy both tickets together, there is a 15% discount. Also, for Pena Palace, there are two types of tickets you can purchase. One is just for the Pena Palace grounds and the other is for the grounds and the museum. We bought the one just for the grounds since I like to read up on the history on my own and the price is much cheaper (7.50 euro vs 14 euro)!

The Moorish Castle, or the Moors Castle is also called The Castelo dos Mouros and it is a ruined castle located on the hilly, forest-y area of Sintra. It was built by the North African Moors to guard the city of Sintra but was ruined after the Christians conquered Portugal.

I just loved how I could see the entire city from the castle. As I walked around the Castle, although I’m not sure exactly why it’s called a castle since nothing resembling a castle is located her, I felt like I was in a movie. It felt surreal! I thought of Lord of the Rights and Game of Thrones and couldn’t help imagining a battle going on around! The steps here at the Moors Castle are also quite steep and with the sun blazing down on you, it’s hard to walk around for a while. Again, our Swell bottle was just amazing! And don’t forget to wear sunscreen!

From the Moorish Castle, you can also see the infamous Pena Palace at a distance!

After, we finished exploring the Moorish Castle, we took the 494 bus (which comes quite frequently). Then we went to the next stop on the Sintra Travel guide: The Pena Palace. This a 5 min bus ride and then walked up the steep hills to get to the entrance. You can take a bus as well, but it costs an additional 5 euro each and not worth it to me, since the walk is just 5-10 minutes.

The Pena Palace was very interesting! It was a mix of bright colors and different architectural designs.

And it had an area with my favorite plant, the Monstera! I really want to get one of these plants next!

The Pena Palace is a castle at the top of the Sintra mountains, a bit higher up than the Moorish Castle. It is also one of the 7 Wonders of Portugal! The Pena Palace first started off as a chapel and after an earthquake in the 1700’s, the King of Portugal built the Palace of Pena. Finally, in the 1900’s, the Portugese government purchased the Palace and converted it to a museum.

Pena Palace is PACKED with tourists and every single one of them have cameras! This place is so photogenic since it was has so many different decor designs going on. We were no exception, we took a LOT of pictures!!

After Pena Palace, we took the 434 bus down to he city center to grab some lunch. We found this amazing Indian food place and Gursheel was happy to see other Punjabi people in Sintra. The restaurant, Bengal Tandoori, was a bit hidden away, so our GPS saved the day once again and we were happy to eat Indian food and drink some refreshing drinks in the shade!

After lunch, we walked to the National Palace of Sintra, before heading back to the train station to get back to the car and start our long drive to the Algarve! That’s all for the Sintra Travel Guide!

This was a beautiful shot of the Sintra City center from the National Palace. I would love to live somewhere like this place, if only there were more Punjabi people around!

I really hope you all enjoyed this Sintra travel guide! Our most expensive day for our entire Europe trip was the day we went to Sintra. Since Sintra is quite huge tourist attraction, the prices for everything here are quite high compared to other places. This is a cost breakdown for our day in Sintra:

Price Break Down (1 day in Sintra):

Food: 18.10 euro

Gas: 26.44 euro (to fill up our rental car)

Transit: 18.60 euro

Entertainment: 29.44 euro (tickets to Pena Palace and Moors Castle)

Total: 92.58 euro

Up Next: The Algarve in Portugal

Kam Travels

Travel Guide: Things to do in Lisbon, Portugal with Vegetarian Vegan Food in Lisbon

07.05.17

Hey everyone! It’s been a little while but I am back from our amazing trip to Portugal and Spain and I can’t wait to tell you about all the things to do in Lisbon and the amazing vegetarian/vegan food in Lisbon we discovered. Today I will start with a travel guide to Lisbon, Portugal where I will walk you through what our favourite things to do in Lisbon along with a some amazing Lisbon vegetarian vegan food.

We arrived in Lisbon, Portugal around 1 pm and instead of heading straight to our airbnb, we decided to just start the day and discover Lisbon in our Peugeot rental car! I didn’t want to do too much since we had an overnight flight and probably only got a couple hours of sleep. So, we went to Belem! There are 2 major must sees and things to do in Lisbon (specifically Belem):

Belem Tower: is a fort that was built to guard Lisbon from raiders and it has a a Moorish style that makes it beautiful! There is a fee to enter the actual tower (6 euro) and is free on Sundays. Also, if you want to visit Jeronimos Monastery, you can get the combined ticket for the tower and the Monastery for 12 euro. We actually just took pictures from the outside and read about its history from signs that were surrounding it. Also, if you drive here, there is free parking near the museum, the one right beside the Belem Tower (I believe it is called Museu do Combatente).

Another thing to note is that the street that the Belem Tower is on is a very touristy street! There are a lot of people walking around, lots of food carts and lots of souvenir shops. A couple of other touristy attractions are also on this street. So, just park your car and walk around until you reach Jeronimos Monastery.

Jeronimos Monastery: This monastery is the most highly decorated church in Portugal and is BEAUTIFUL! It is also where the explorer, Vasco da Gama spent his last night before his travel to the Far East. We actually wanted to go inside and check out the monastery, but this place is VERY BUSY! It is surrounded by tour buses and tons of people. I would definitely buy tickets in advance if you want to go inside. Otherwise, it is very impressive from the outside as well and I’m sure you will get a lot of amazing pictures.

One thing we learned is that Lisbon is the world leader in cork production so we saw a lot of things made of cork. In fact, there were souvenir shops where every product in the shop was made of cork. I bought a couple of post cards made of cork to send to my family.

This was the cutest food truck I saw the entire trip!

That was all we did on our first day, along with walk around the streets and get some food from the food trucks. The Weeel food truck sells vegetarian (eggless) frozen yogurt and it was a nice healthy treat for the super hot day (3.20 euro for a small size). Also, Weeel is pretty popular in Lisbon, I saw multiple trucks all around Lisbon, more so in the touristy areas.

Another thing to note about Lisbon is that it is beautiful! You will never run out of things to take pictures of. My favorite subject were the pretty buildings and doors with the tiny cars all around.

After our day in Belem, we headed over to our airbnb and tried to find a vegetarian/vegan friendly restaurant but had a difficult time as not many people spoke English in that area. After some frustration, we went to the grocery store and bought some tortillas, cream cheese and vegetables and made some wraps with some chips and coconut yogurt on the side. Gursheel said he never had anything like that wrap before and requested we make it more often. But don’t worry, day 2 was much better in terms of Lisbon vegetarian vegan food and even more excited in terms of things to do in Lisbon.

The next day was our full day in Lisbon and we spent it all in downtown Lisbon. There are so many things to do in Lisbon and downtown Lisbon is AMAZING! I fell in love with the beautiful pastel colored buildings with the red roofs, the steep streets and the yellow colored Trams! Our airbnb was outside of downtown Lisbon, so we took the subway to Rossio Station. The transit system was super easy to use and the cost of the ticket (each way) was 1.80 euro.

Rossio Square: Right across the street from Rossio Station is this square that has been the main square since the Middle Ages. Apparently it was the sight of bullfights and executions back in the day. To me it was just this large square with lots of shops and restaurants surrounding it.

Rua Augusta Arch: From Rossio Station, we walked to Rua Augusta Arch first, which was built to commemorate the city’s reconstruction. One thing to note about Lisbon is that there was a major earthquake in 1755 and the ENTIRE city was rebuilt!

Praca do Comercio: Right across the Arch is this giant square overlooking the Tagus river. Again, this is just a giant square with beautiful views all around and just a nice place to walk around and take pictures.

One thing Gursheel wanted to see was Pink Street. I literally just typed in Pink Street in Google Maps and it was a 10 min walk from Rua Augusta Arch. It’s just a street that is painted pink. Nothing too special, but I did see a bunch of people having a photo shoot there, so we decided to join in as well 😛

Next, we walked over to Mercado do Ribeira, a market place that has a ton of amazing food along with Lisbon vegetarian vegan food as well. It was a bit early, but we were hungry so got some vegetarian Pesto Pizza and it was delicious. Gursheel said it was the best pesto pizza he’s had so that’s saying something.

Next, we walked to an area of Lisbon called Alfama, which is the oldest district of Lisbon. This area was definitely a maze as we navigated through the narrow and steep streets to get to some of the places we wanted to see, the first being Miradouro das Portas do Sol, a view point where you can appreciate the beautiful red buildings of Lisbon. Just note that there are a LOT of people here so make sure to keep your bags in sight! It’s definitely one of the popular things to do in Lisbon.

It was also a great place to get a nice shot of this beautiful Church.

One of the major sights and things to do in Lisbon is the Sao Jorge Castle which overlooks the city and the River Tagus. However, the fee to enter it is 8.50 euro per adult and we were told it’s not worth the price since you can see exactly the same thing from Miradouro das Portas do Sol viewpoint. We walked to the Castle, saw the long lines, and also decided it wasn’t worth standing in the heat to just get the same views.

We also stopped by at Primo Basilico to grab some vegan pizza. Two slices (8 pieces in total) and 2 drinks cost us 6 euro and I thoroughly enjoyed the vegan pizza here.

As we headed back towards Rossio Station, we stopped to take a bunch of photos of the beautiful yellow Trams of Lisbon.

We wanted to try a bunch of vegan restaurants for dinner, but one thing to know about Europe is that a LOT of restaurants only open from 8:30 pm! It was 6 pm for us and we were starving, so there was a Subway that was open where we grabbed a bite.

The Lisbon vegetarian vegan food that I had researched and wanted to try were Tao and Restaurant PSI, and both are near Alfama and Rossio Square.

After our two days in Lisbon, we were off to the Algarve, but we did come back for one more night in Lisbon but this airbnb was near Parque das Nações. This area is also located right by the river Tagus and the majority of it is made up of green spaces. It is also the location of the largest Aquarium in Europe and the Expo that happened in 1998. We took a cable car that takes you from the main Expo building to the Aquarium and goes over the River Tagus with amazing views of the city and the Vasco de Gama Bridge.

We didn’t take many pictures this day as we wanted to relax but it was definitely a unique area of Lisbon and glad we were able to experience it. There was plenty of Lisbon vegetarian vegan food here as well, but again, due to almost all restaurants opening at 8:30 pm, we didn’t get to try any! Next time! 😛

One thing I did during this trip was write down exactly how much we spent and on what. We actually had a budget for our entire trip and we were able to keep the total cost of the trip under $2400 Cad! This includes flight, accommodation, food, car rental and gas, entertainment, shopping and the Sim Card for 10 days.So the price break down for our 3 days in Lisbon, not including the airbnbs we stayed in is the following:

Price Break Down (3 days in Lisbon):

Food: 57.14 Euro

Gas: 40.62 euro (to fill up our rental car)

Transit: 7.40 euro

Entertainment: 7.90 euro (cable car tickets)

Shopping: 7.40 euro

Total: 120.46 euro

I hope you enjoyed all the things to do in Lisbon. Up next: Day 3 in Sintra, Portugal!

Kamfy Living

Gold, White and Pink – Floral and Balloon Themed Bridal Shower

06.11.17

A couple of weeks ago was the bridal shower for my sister-in-law and I was in charge of the decor. Having moved here almost a year, I didn’t own very many things that could be used for decor but I was ready for the challenge to do a budget friendly decor that also looked amazing. So, today I will walk you through the decor for a balloon themed bridal shower and what I did to keep this bridal shower budget friendly.

Venue: Originally, I hoped we could do the bridal shower at our house, because that would have no cost in terms of renting out space. But my sister-in-law really wanted to not do it at home, so we went with a community center. Community centers book pretty fast so make sure to book well in advance. The cost was reasonable, I believe it was around $30/hour and you can get an additional 2 hours to setup and cleanup. This is a budget friendly option for those of you who are unable to keep the bridal shower at home.
Theme: Okay, so for the theme, I decided to keep it pretty broad so went with a gold, pink and white theme, which is fitting for any bridal shower. By keeping a broad theme, it allows you to play with different decor styles and use whatever fits your budget. If I were to describe the actual theme of this party I would say it was a balloon themed bridal shower.
Decorating Items: I had a couple of ideas for decorating the space and keeping it within the theme and budget:

Use what you have at home: Collect any decorative items you have at home. These can include frames, cake stands, pretty serving utensils, vases, the list is endless. You can even ask your family and friends if you can borrow items. I used a bunch of frames and vases we had at home. I even used some pretty fabric we had to use as table cloth!
Use Balloons: Balloons can easily fill up a room. My biggest concern for this venue was the fact it was quite spacious! And balloons were the perfect answer. I bought a bunch of giant balloons that fit the theme in terms of color and design. I recommend searching for balloons online on eBay or Amazon, as these can be considerably cheaper than Party City (although they may take a while to arrive if you go for the free shipping option). Then you just need to purchase a helium tank to fill up the balloons! And they fit perfectly with the balloon themed bridal shower.
Make a flower wall: This option actually looked amazing and was very inexpensive to set up. You just need flowers and tape. I had wanted to purchase roses for the flower wall, but they were much pricier than carnations. I ended up using carnations (bought 36 in total) and that was more than enough to have a statement flower wall for the bride to sit in front of.
Buy decorative items at Value Village: Value Village has a ton of decorative items that are much cheaper than Home Sense or Winners. You never know what you may find, but I have yet to be let down by this amazing store! Use this store to find frames, candles, fake flowers, anything that will fit the theme of the decor.
Buy items online: By buying on eBay or Amazon, you can get a lot of things for much less than compared to stores like Party City. The online disadvantage is if you want free shipping the items take over a month to arrive. You just need to plan in advance to save some money.

4. Photo Booth: A party is always made more fun by taking a lot of pictures with your friends and family and a Photo booth is the perfect way to force the guests to take pictures. Usually for a photo booth you need a backdrop and a camera setup. I talked about setting your own photo booth for a wedding here where you take pictures and they are instantly printed out for the guests to keep on a 4×6 printer sheet. However, for this bridal shower, I did something a bit different. I bought a Polaroid camera Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 Instant Film Camera (White) and a bunch of film. You can purchase film on Amazon or eBay in bulk to save on cost (as in stores it is a bit more pricey). I just laid it out on a table for the guests to use to take pictures. The backdrop was simple. I purchased a bunch of balloons in various sizes and colors along with some gold streamers to create a balloon backdrop. I just used helium to fill up the balloons and arranged them in various sizes for the backdrop.

Now for some photos of how everything turned out! I’ll be sure to link whatever I can down below so continue reading!

This is a picture of the flower wall. We put this pretty chair in front along with a giant ring shaped balloon. I was pleasantly surprised and happy with how this turned out!

These frames and vase were items we had at home. I just bought this mirror from Home Sense and used a white sharpie to write a message!

Here is a better shot of the entrance table. These giant LOVE balloons I found of Amazon and the table cloth was fabric we had at home already!

The photo booth table. Guests took pictures with the Instax Mini 8 camera and taped the printed photo with some washi tape onto a beautiful floral guestbook for the bride to keep.

For the dessert table, I found this skid on the side of the street and painted it white. Then I just placed this love balloon in front. One of my favorite parts of the bridal shower, although the picture doesn’t do it justice (Gursheel didn’t take this picture).

Minus the garbage bin on the side, this was the balloon backdrop for the photo booth. Instead of purchasing weights for the balloons, I filled some empty balloons with sand. Easy! I hope you enjoyed this budget friendly guide for decorating for a balloon themed bridal shower.