Slovenia: Lake Bled and Beyond — The road liss traveled

From Venice I booked a bus to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia and from there hopped on another local bus to Lake Bled. The freely crossing of borders thing is pretty great! One thing I learned very quickly is that Lake Bled is not a cheap destination, definitely no hotel rooms for under $100 or even really close to that, so it looks like hostel time. 45 Euros ($50) for a 4 bed room in someone’s house basically, and as for my room, their basement. It was arranged so that shower and toilet were together in the bathroom, but the sink was part of the bedroom, and there was no mirror. Alrighty then. It was one British girl and two Dutch guys in our cozy little room. I must say, after staying in some hostels in Japan and Taiwan and other places in Southeast Asia, the hostels in Europe feel old and outdated and generally just kinda suck.

The lake was beautiful though. The sun was shining, the water was a nice color of turquoise, the temperature was perfect for swimming, tons of people were out with their kayaks or stand up paddle boards (SUPs), or biking around the lake. I found a café on the lake to brush up on my Slovenian words and polite nicities as well as try their famous crème cake, kremsnita. And what an awkward cake! The top layer is hard, and you can’t get through it with a fork, so you basically have to smash all the crème out trying to cut through it. I mean it was tasty, probably a bajillion calories, but it’s a strange feeling when it seems difficult to eat cake. The person who came up with the ‘it’s a piece of cake’ expression was surely not eating kremsnita!

For the sunset I walked the two miles to the far side of the lake where the church in the middle of the lake is, and where there are some good viewpoint to hike up to. I picked the highest one, it was definitely worth the 30 minutes of straight uphill to get there. It really is a gorgeous lake. Of course by the time I got back to the house, the tiny kitchen is full, the family room is full, there’s just not enough room in this place to accommodate the amount of people staying there. I ended walking down the street and having a burger, and that place was hopping because it’s the only casual type spot in the whole town open after 9pm (closes at 10). For being such a popular tourist destination, the city of Bled is shockingly dead after dark! The nearby hostel bar seemed to be the hangout spot.

The next morning I was up at 4:45 to get to the viewpoint by 6am. And it was cloudy, nooooo. But I was already up and out the door, so maybe we’ll get lucky. By the time I got up there, I was maybe the 7th or 8th person. I guess I didn’t really have to get there at 6am factoring in the extra time it takes for the sun to come up from behind the mountains. But 6:30 came and went, then 7am, and still all clouds. There was one break in the clouds, and with some luck the sun would come right through it, and fortunately that’s exactly what happened! Go sun! For about 15 minutes it popped through that hole, the rays brightly shining through the land below. Magnificent. A lovely morning. And then back to bed.

That afternoon I went down to lake with the Dutch guys to get some sun and rent a SUP to cruise around for a bit. It was a very relaxing rest of the day. Although it felt too early in the trip to be having a relaxing day. The first couple weeks of a trip I’m in high energy GO mode, so the next day I’d go for something more ambitious. There’s a famous hike that starts from the highest road pass in the park, going straight uphill to a 360 degree lookout point, that’s what I wanted to do. Now the tricky part was figuring out how to get there. Turns out I’d have to take a bus to the nearest real city, Jesenice, and then from there a bus to a touristy ski town at the foot of the mountains, and then from there a shuttle bus to go up to the pass, which only runs in July and August. I think I spent an hour on the bus website looking up timetables to get my timing right. I was off early on the 7am bus from Bled.

On the way there things were coordinated exceptionally well and it only took 2 hours to get to the pass, which was basically the best case scenario. Good logistics planning is very satisfying. It really was a great hike, and you could branch off into a few different trails for different lookouts. One of them was a Via Ferrata trail, which is a protected hike using metal footholds and steel railing in certain spots that you can clip onto wearing a harness to protect a fall. Next time I go to the Alps, I’m learning how to do this, looks like a lot of fun!

The sheep hiding from the sun. If you parked here you just have stay longer!

I did some other side hikes and then came down to catch the next bus back. Now if I had done the appropriate planning ahead of time, I could have hiked to a mountain hut from the pass, and then to another mountain hut, and ended up at Lake Bohinj, which is the lake I’d be staying at the next day anyway. But I did not do this, the mountain huts were already all full, so I’d have to do the 3 part bus journey again to get home. I did stop at an alpine lake for a swim, a very short swim as the water was shockingly cold, and then hung out in the tourist mountain town for a bit. And then caught the bus to Jesenice. And then from there I just kept waiting for the bus to Bled, and after 45 minutes it didn’t come, so I hopped on a bus to another nearby city, and from there a bus to Bled. So 7 buses in total! Yikes. And as a side note, I really need to learn Slovenian pronunciation, because the bus drivers are getting real confused when I try and tell them what city I’m trying to go to…

The next day I was up early as usual and took the bus to the nearby Lake Bohinj and dropped my stuff off at the hostel. From there I took another bus to the big waterfall, and that would be the start of the 7 lakes hike, although I didn’t have enough time to see all 7. And what a start to this hike! 1,000 meters/3,300 ft up the sheer face of a rock wall. It actually wasn’t as dangerous as the internet made it out to be, but there were a few parts where they have cables to hold onto if needed. Getting into hiking shape real quick. Lunch was at a mountain hut situated at double lake. I was kinda bummed out to not be staying at any of the mountain huts though. Although less bummed after ordering an $8 strudel and it dry and crappy and made with preservatives, miss me with that price:value ratio.

Other part of double lake with the mountain hut in the background

From there it was another few hours to hike out to a different spot, where I could get a shuttle bus back to Lake Bohinj. Of course I missed the shuttle bus by 10 minutes because the shuttle pickup point isn’t at the trailhead, it’s way down the road, so now I would be waiting for over an hour for the next one. And now it starts raining, yay. I love the compounding mistakes. Fortunately a Czech couple with two kids decided to stop their car and see if I wanted a lift, yes please! The wife hopped in the backseat with the kids, and they gave me the front seat for the 30 minute ride into town. They were doing a two week road trip through Austria, Slovenia and a bit of N Italy. So that totally unexpected and was super super cool of them.

The next morning I rented a bike and rode around the Lake a bit and that was basically all for my time in the mountains. Off to the capital, which I definitely had to google how to pronounce, Ljubljana. Loo-be-on-ah. And here’s a few more pastoral photos from the countryside…