Lake Bled & Soteska Vintgar (Slovenia)

After having an amazing evening in Ljubljana (click here to read this post if you haven’t yet) we woke up early the next morning to drive to Lake Bled. We had asked our Airbnb host if it was better to drive or take the bus to Bled and she told us definitely the bus because it got so busy and parking was difficult, but we opted to drive anyway because we had the car, and having the freedom to come and go as we wanted plus the option to go other places was, we decided, for the best. I even did some preplanning (a rarity for me) to find a recommended parking lot. We woke up and hit the road by 8, and when we arrived about 45 minutes later there was ample parking and we had the place practically to ourselves.

Which was probably good so that people couldn’t hear our squeals of glee. Remember how geeked I was after exploring Ljubljana? Well THIS place might be even better. Can I just go on and on again about how much I love Slovenia? Never mind, scratch that, it sucks (but I may just want to keep it for myself).

Back to Bled, and Lake Bled, check out our first glimpses of it. I can practically here you squealing from here.

Now let me warn you before you move on with this blog post. I want to make sure you are ready for the onslaught of beautiful pictures you’re about to see. They only get BETTER! However, I will acknowledge that although I took 6,284,592 pictures yesterday of Lake Bled it MAY be that they aren’t really THAT different. But don’t give up on this post my loyal 8 readers (yes, I added one since Ljubljana!), the end of this post is all about Soteska Vintgar and I may or may not have loved it even more! (I’ll never tell; that would be rude to all parties involved).

Back to Lake Bled…

…There has been a major heat wave going on in Europe, and it hit 94 degrees that day, but having started our day so early we weren’t burning up (or profusely sweating) yet in these pics (another reason to stick around- to see our progression into sweating heaps of grossness- but gleeful grossnesses at least).

here are some facts: Lake Bled is almost 7000 feet long and 4500 feet wide. It’s highest depth is 97 feet. It was formed after a glacier melted here, which may be why the water is SO blue and yet so clear. Plus; there’s no industry or gas powered boats on the lake. The most action this lake sees is from the rowers- I mean serious rowers too; there is an Olympic rowing facility at Lake Bled and the World Rowing Championships have been held here 4 times.

We decided to hike all the way around the lake, which is 3.7 miles total. about halfway into our walk we came to the pletna. You can rent your own row boat for an hour (for about €15) to go out to the island, or for basically the same amount of money (€15 a person) you can have a professional row for you. I couldn’t convince Erin to row me out there, but we did find a man who would, or it wasn’t such an oar-deal.

this guy was rowing about 16 of us across on his own- talk about arms of steel! It’s about a 1/2 mile to the island, and took him less than 10 minutes to get us there.

On the island is the Church of the Assumption. There is a 171 foot tower that people can (pay to) climb, and at the top is a “wishing bell” from 1534 that people can ring and ask the bell for a wish. You could hear it ringing all day, here’s what it sounded like :

After our ride over we were given 40 minutes to explore the main island. We decided not to climb the tower and opted to eat instead, trying the Slovene specialty called Potica instead. Potica is made in a bundt-pan and is a nut-rolled pasty, not particularly sweet, but pretty good.

Can I talk again about how clear this water was? Look at the fish!

we continued our walk after the pletna ride, coming to a nice, shady boardwalk . There were starting to be a lot more people at the lake, swimming, biking, sunbathing, fishing, this place is definitely a summer hot-spot!

We did make it all the way around the lake, and decided to grab a bite to eat. The town of bled had a lot of cafes and shops too and seemed quite charming, though we didn’t get to explore it- this was our outside adventure day!

After lunch we decided to make the hike up to the castle that we were seeing up on the cliff.

It was a serious hike up to the castle, and then when you get there you find out you have no access to views unless you pay the €11 entrance fees.

I’d say now after doing it it was worth about €6, the views were good but there wasn’t much else to it. However, after walking all the way up (328 feet to be exact) Erin wasn’t going to let us leave for nothing! here are some pics from the castle

The castle is built on two levels and dates back to the early 11th century. For over 800 some bishops lived here. And that concludes what I learned, so back to more pics.

there are some museumy quality things here , just not a lot, it they do have the first Slovene-written word book.

we walked up to the ramparts and enjoyed the views.

After about an hour of exploring the castle we descended the steel hill, and Erin joined the masses with a swim. And look how brave I was!

After all the excitement of Lake Bled, we decided to make one other quick trip to Soteska Vintgar, or Vintgar Gorge. It was a 10 minute drive through a small little village (where we almost got ran off the road by a bus) and once we arrived parking was €5 and tickets into the gorge were €10 each. But it was so worth it!

The Vintgar Gorge was simply breathtaking. After spending the day wandering around Lake Bled I thought it couldn’t be topped, but the landscape was just enchanting. For 1.6km, or about a mile one way, the boardwalk crisscrosses the Radovna River that was incredibly photogenic.

The gorge is located in Triglav National Park and the water is so clear and so blue, it felt just magical.

We read that the Gorge gets very busy but we arrived at 4pm and it really wasn’t bad. And the shade of the trees plus the breeze that flowed by the river made it feel like such a welcome break from the extreme heat we had experienced all day.

The boardwalk was sometimes creeky, and would hug the mountainside and frequently crossed the river so that you are suspended over the rapids, making it a very thrilling walk.

About halfway into the walk you get to a slower moving part of the river, and you’re walking along gravel paths, but soon the water starts picking up speed and we came to a large stone bridge and a dam, and quickly after that we came to the end where there is another ticket booth and a small cafe. We joked about how funny it was to have a refreshment stand at the end of a nature hike but that didn’t stop us from getting some ice cream. There were also some steps that led to a view of the beautiful waterfall.

so after our ice cream we made the one mile walk back to the car and then drove an hour back to Ljubljana. What a wonderful day! We hiked 10 miles total and I felt totally connected with nature and all the beauty that exists in this amazing world of ours.