Day 15: Bohinj

Today we were planning to visit a place which was originally on our itinerary when we last came to Slovenia in 2015, but which we had to give up on that time around because the weather wasn't good enough: Lake Bohinj. Lake Bohinj is in the same direction as Lake Bled, but a bit further on, so the bus journey from Ljubljana takes around 2 hours. We decided to make a fairly early start and catch the bus at 09.00.

It was a very scenic journey, and shortly after 11am we stepped off the bus in the small village at the eastern end of the lake.

We crossed over a bridge...

...passed the local church....

...and soon got our first view of the lake.

Lake Bohinj is the largest lake in Slovenia.

The circumference of the lake is 7.5 miles and the guidebook said it would take about 3.5 hours to walk around.

The guidebook said that there was a proper walking path along the northern side of the lake, with the path along the southern side being a road, so not as nice. We decided to start with the northern side.

We began to follow the path. There seemed to be a lot of people swimming and sunbathing at this end of the lake, although it was definitely quieter than at Bled.

The water of the lake was a really amazing shade of blue once you looked away from the pebbly beaches.

When we turned away from the lake there were some beautiful views of the countryside as well.

We could see all the way to the other end of the lake from this part of the path and it did look like it was quite a long way! Thankfully it was a nice sunny day  

Our first problem with the path came when we encountered this herd of cows.

Some of them were standing right in the middle of the path, so I found getting past them rather nerve-wracking! Fortunately we managed it.

Once we got past the cows, we were able to enjoy the views again.

Apparently Slovenia is divided over whether Lake Bled or Lake Bohinj is the most beautiful, and it's easy to see why

Lake Bohinj is certainly less developed; there are fewer hotels here, and the path around the lake was a lot more rugged than at Bled.

In fact, we soon came to a sign saying that the footpath was closed 

We couldn't work out why it was supposed to be closed though... and we could still see groups of other people continuing on the path... so we decided to keep going. The path began to take us through more woodland, so it was harder to see the lake.

Occasionally we just got glimpses through the trees

After a while we figured out why the path might have been closed; it became increasingly wet and muddy underfoot, and we could see that if there was a lot of rain it might be a struggle to get through. It was just about doable today, though we did get a bit of mud on our trainers!

Eventually the path crossed what seemed to be a dried-up stream...

...and emerged at the far end of the lake.

The views from this end were wonderful as well.

In one direction it still looked quite sunny...

...but in the other direction it seemed like it was becoming cloudier, so we decided we'd better not linger for long in case the rain which had been forecast for today actually arrived.

We crossed a bridge over a river, where the water was a beautiful colour.

It was flowing pretty quickly!

Once we got past the river, we were indeed walking on a roadside path along the southern edge of the lake, as the guidebook had said. This was definitely easier underfoot than the path through the forest, which turned out to be a good thing because very soon it started to rain!

It was amazing how quickly it went from being a sunny day to being a very wet one!  Luckily our path was mostly under the trees, so we managed to avoid getting completely soaked as we made our way back to the village.

Eventually we made it and were able to shelter inside the bus stop while we waited for the bus back to Ljubljana. The journey back ended up taking more like 2.5 hours as there was a road closed due to an accident near Bled, but it was definitely worth it to finally see Lake Bohinj