Day 5 & 6 as part of our Summer Roadtrip 2018 visiting the Italian Dolomites, Lake Bled and Istria. A travel diary, if you will…

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Lake Bled is definitely one of the prettiest lakes I’ve ever seen. It has a circumference of only 4 miles so even the most unfit tourist could manage that little saunter. In any respects, Americans don’t seem to have made it this far yet anyway, when they do I imagine the lakeside pathway will become a perilous activity of ‘avoid-the-segway’. In the meantime, the overweight and lazy can take a little toy train around the circumference and get to look like overgrown children.

Whatever your weight, one must do a circle of this beauty.

When God designed Bled he said ‘hmm, it’s good, but a little island would make it prettier. Oh and let’s throw in a castle – humans like castles.’ Add to all that a multitude of different style trees and locals who walk their dogs in nothing but a tiny pair of Speedo’s (incase they fancy a dip I presume) and you have the perfect place to spend one day of your life.

We started with a 7 x 7 slice of Bled Cake for breakfast at the hotel of its origins – Hotel Park. This place gets rammed between 10am and 5pm when the day visitors team in, but having booked 2 nights on the Lake we were early enough to blag a table with a view on their veranda.

Cake is always the best way to start a day but even better when the guilty calories can be offset with a gruelling trek to a lookout point. Half a mile high and a 40 minute climb through a forest with no directions except maybe the odd skeleton to remind you what happens if you slip, you end up at the top on a bench with the best view of Lake Bled. The trek/hill is called Ojstrica if anyone’s interested in burning some cake-calories.

Back on the shore kids swing from trees into the water, parents sunbath on the grass like Monet-muses and we head off to try some local Slovenian wine at a trendy terrace on Bled. Their most expensive glass cost €3 and tasted like sweet nectar. At that price you can see how the day ran away with us and before we knew it, it was tomorrow and Croatia was calling.

We did attempt to do a little exploring of real-life-Slovenia this morning before we left for Croatia but after following directions to some supposedly beautiful little villages from a blog I’d found, we felt short-changed by these slightly picturesque streets. If this was the best Slovenia had to offer – no thanks. However, I’m prepared to withhold judgement until we see some of your coastline next week.

Nasvidenje Slovenia.