Lake Bled

It's hard to exaggerate the beauty of Lake Bled in Slovenia.  Nestled at the base of the Julian Alps it was a wonderful place to stay for three days.  We had made reservations at a popular penzione and soon found the reason for the popularity.  After our bus ride from Ljubljana and a short walk the proprietor greeted us with cookies and a clean room.  Since it was just minutes from the lake we had a chance to look around a little before coming back for dinner at the attached restaurant.  As we enjoyed the delicious food and drinks we saw the waiter greet regulars who obviously returned here regularly.

After breakfast the next day we started off on a walk around the lake.  We soon found a traditional row boat (no gas motors are allowed on the lake) to take us out to a church on an island in the middle of the lake.  The ride gave great views of the castle overlooking the lake.  After our ride we continued to make our way on foot around the lake to a place along the shore for lunch.  It was fun watching the people walk by and trying to determine if they were tourists or locals.

We next made the steep climb up to Castle Bled.  Perched on rocky ledges it seemed to be very well defended and was very well preserved.  The castle included a traditional printing press, a traditional wine bottling room, iron works, and local tour guides in costume to help explain them.  The most fun was when a "monk" walked us through the bottling of our own wine.

On our next day we rented a car and took it out to see some of the local features.  This started with the Vintgar Gorge a short drive from the lake.  There, a wooden path clung to the edge of a serpentine gorge feet from the beautiful turquoise-green waters.  The path was longer than we expected leading to beautiful views around every turn.  As the amount of people on the trail grew though we decided to take the long way back around to where we were parked.

After lunch back in town we drove out to another, larger lake not to far away.  We got wonderful views of this lake as we took a cable car up steep cliffs to a ski area overlooking the valley.  Some more hiking around the area gave us plenty of exercise and we were ready to call it a day as we headed back to our room.

The next day we packed up the car and headed out.  It was a little sad to go, but I can definitely see us coming back to this area in the future.