Day 13: Lake Bled

When we woke up this morning there seemed to have been a bit of an improvement in the weather. It wasn't raining at least, although it still looked very cloudy over Ljubljana, and the forecast suggested it ought to stay reasonably dry until the later afternoon. After another beautiful breakfast of burek, we decided to go ahead with our original plan for the day, which was a trip to Lake Bled.

Lake Bled is situated about 35 miles northwest of Ljubljana, in the more mountainous part of Slovenia. Although there is a train station near the lake, it isn't on a direct line to Ljubljana and therefore the best way to get there from the capital is to take a bus. There are lots of buses to Bled (approximately one every 30 minutes) and the journey takes around an hour. Slovenia is definitely the most expensive country of this holiday; the tickets were around €12 each for a return.

As we got closer to Bled, the clouds began to clear and at times it almost began to look sunny. Perhaps I wouldn't need my raincoat after all The bus stops at the small town of Bled, which is located at the eastern end of the lake.

The town itself isn't terribly scenic, with a collection of concrete hotels.

Only a few hundred metres away from the bus station though you can get your first view of the lake, and the lake is magnificent  

We started walking anti-clockwise around the lake.

The tops of the mountains were in the clouds, but there was still a great view.

There is a small island in the middle of the lake, which is home to the church of the Assumption of Mary.

The church as it currently stands was built in the late seventeenth century.

There seem to be some renovation works being done on the church tower at the moment.

The circumference of the lake is around 4 miles so it's easy to walk all the way around.

We were already making good progress and could now see some of the ugly hotels in the distance.

There's a beach at the western end of the lake, where there was a collection of people sunbathing and swimming. There were also some ducks having a nap

It looks like it would be quite pebbly underfoot if you tried to paddle...

...and it also looks like there might be rather a lot of fish

 

As you come further around the western edge of the lake, there is a wooden footway right alongside the water, which gives some really great views.

From here you can start to see the other iconic building around the edge of the lake: Bled Castle.

The castle is perched on a rocky crag above the lake.

It is believed to be the oldest castle of Slovenia, having first been mentioned in a document dating from 1011.

This side of the lake was quite quiet, as it was furthest away from the town and the bus station.

As we got back towards the other side of the lake, it became a bit busier again. We did find a kiosk to buy postcards, though

And there were some really great views up to the castle from here.

We could now see back towards the town of Bled and its distinctive white church.

It was looking a bit cloudier by this point, but it was so beautiful that when we got back to the start we decided to do a second lap around the lake

It turned out to be a good decision, because things did actually brighten up a bit

Plus the clouds themselves were actually very atmospheric!

It was so nice and peaceful here that we could have stayed indefinitely  

And when the sun came out it was particularly lovely.

The bus out had been so busy though that we didn't want to leave it too late in case there was a scrum for seats on the return buses... and two laps of the lake was probably our limit anyway... so we had one last look at the view and then set off back for Ljubljana.

This was our third trip to Lake Bled and I think it's fair to say that it's still one of my favourite places ever