Lake Bled

As part of the Croatia and Slovenia road trip late last summer, we spend a day at Lake Bled. OMG, I don’t even know where to start to describe how beautiful this place is. In fact, I don’t even think that my non-mother-tongue vocabulary would do any justice (and I’m not a poet at all either). So instead of failing at describing it adequately, I took LOADS of photos of which this lot here is just a tiny little selection :) So, see for yourself!

Bottom line: Lake Bled is definitely a must-see if you travel through Slovenia or in Istria in Croatia.

Find the girls… or don’t 

I travelled with 3 of my friends (we were a group of 4 ladies) but on the day that we visited Lake Bled, I decided to stay longer in bed and recover a bit more from my cold. Our apartment was just a 20 mins walk away from the lake, so it would be super easy to find them later.

So I thought. I thought WRONG.

It turns out that you always need around one hour to get from one pretty place on Lake Bled to another. Walking up to the castle takes around 20 to 30 minutes (especially if you have a cold..) and the boat ride to the island takes about the same… then there are lots of pretty places around the lake to which you – depending on your choice of transport – also need around 30 mins. Once you have arrived at any of these pretty sights you also want to spend some time there. As I thought the girls would visit the castle first, I went straight there. Yet they decided to start with the island instead.. This meant that we were always around one hour and a half ‘away’ from each other.

Well, it’s not that I did sightseeing on my own for the first time, so I still had a great time. Yet I was super happy to finally meet them again in the late afternoon when we had a quick and early dinner before we headed off to the airport to fly back to London.

Bled Castle

Inside Lake Bled’s Castle

The View From Bled Castle

Lake Bled’s Island

… Taking a boat to Lake Bled’s island

So… I guess when I just hopped into the boat to the island, the girls just hopped into their boat to leave the island.. what a timing :) Nope, they couldn’t have waited for me as the boat rides are ‘timed’ and you have around 45 mins only on the island before your boat leaves again.

My road ride back was amazing though as suddenly a guy asked me to hold his phone facing him and his girlfriend. I took the phone with a big question mark above my head first – he just asked me to ‘hold’ not to take a picture.. But then he went down on his knees and I realised the phone is taking a video.. and it made ‘click’. He was proposing :) OMG, this was soooo cute. All the other guests on the boat started applauding and when we arrived there was a lot of hugging going on :) :)

… On the Island

Around Lake Bled

So I initially did NOT plan to take a walk around the lake. My only intention after visiting the castle and the island was to meet the girls to have dinner. As I didn’t find a taxi and it started raining, I decided to take the little sightseeing train that drives along the lake in a circle. It even stopped right in front of the restaurant.

But I didn’t get off. It was still raining so I took out my phone to check google maps whether I’m really in front of the restaurant or if I should stay in the train and get off at the next stop. When I realised that YEYYY, I’m right in front of it… the train started moving again. It had stopped each time before for around 5 mins but this stop was less than 30 sec! So I tried to shout at the driver but he couldn’t hear me. For a second I contemplated ‘jumping off’ the train but then, nah.. I didn’t do that. Reality is often much different from the movies.

I ended up at the OTHER end of the lake.. around 40 mins (!) walking distance from the restaurant. Awesome. I was already too late. So now I was even beyond being ‘too late’.

And again, no taxi. And no train going the other way. So I decided to RUN.

Have you ever jogged during the woods? In your jeans with your purse? It’s great…. not. At least I was wearing sneakers.

But it was sort of fun… Running up and down little hills within the wood and having no idea whether I’m actually taking the right route, reminded me on the game ‘Skyrim‘. At least I wasn’t wearing steel armor and had to fight dragons.. (yup, that’s my geeky side).

It turned out that I took the right short cut and arrived at the restaurant around 15 mins later. I was greeted with some Prosecco (girls – you are the best!).

 

  Have you been to Slovenia and Lake Bled? Let me know in the comments.