Lake Bled and Vintgar Gorge

Lake Bled

For the next part of our tour, I’ll now take you from the depths of Slovenia’s cave systems in the south to the heights of the country’s mountains in the north.

To get to Slovenia’s most internationally renown attraction, you simply have to drive about 35 miles north out of Ljubljana. It only takes about an hour, but it’s like entering a different world. You leave the city’s sprawl behind and quickly enter a world of farms and colorful meadows stretching to the edges of some surprisingly tall mountains.

The view outside Ljubljana

And then you begin climbing up those mountains, and then you’re in Bled.

A view from Bled Castle

You can’t really write about Lake Bled without using the term “picturesque.” It’s nestled away in a valley, surrounded by green forests and the tall peaks of the Julian Alps. In the middle of the lake you have an island with an ornate medieval church—and on the shore you have a castle built on the edge of a cliff.

Yes, it’s as beautiful as you’ve heard.

We arrived, checked in with our friendly Bled hostel keeper and dropped off our luggage, then hoofed it on over to the lake.

First stop: The castle. The buildings themselves aren’t all that interesting—fairly spare and unornamented the way most castles are. There is a small museum with information about the history of the region and some archaeological finds from the area dating back thousands of years.

But you’re really just paying for the view.

There’s nothing quite like eating lunch on the grounds of a castle built on a cliff overlooking a really gorgeous lake. It’s something I’d like to do more often.

Even the sudden rainstorm that sent us fleeing into the museum didn’t really, uh, dampen (pun intended?) our spirits.

After we’d had our fill of the food and the view, we headed back down the hill and spent the evening walking along the shores of the lake and exploring the town.

Bled Castle, from the lake

The main event of the next day: Renting a rowboat and taking it across the lake to the island in the middle. (We could have paid for someone else to row for us, but where’s the fun in that?)

Me struggling mightily to row a boat

One of the Lake Bled boats we could have ridden

It turns out I’m too uncoordinated and physically inept to be a good rower, but I gave it the old college try anyways. It was certainly an adventure. As always when I’m in small boats, I was worried about tipping over and being sucked into the depths. But that didn’t happen.

The view from the water was very nice, though.

There’s not much to do on the island—we visited the church (where we got a chance to ring the bell), climbed one of the bell towers (nice view from the top), and walked the perimeter before heading back to the boat and humiliating myself.

And that about sums up our time in Bled. We explored the town a little bit more, ate some mediocre pizza and some even mediocre-r Mexican food, and then headed on to one last destination before returning to Ljubljana.

Vintgar Gorge

As wonderful as the lake itself is, my favorite part of Bled is actually several miles away from the lake.

As the name might suggest, Vintgar Gorge is, well, a gorge. It’s about a mile long, has a fast-flowing river running through it, and is surrounded by sheer cliffs. It would be completely inaccessible if the Powers-That-Be hadn’t built a walkway along its entire length.

The walkway in Vintgar Gorge

It must have been a pain in the you-know-what to build the path. At times it's built directly into the cliffside. But I’m really glad they did, because I loved this place and I wouldn't have been able to experience it otherwise.

Ok, you’re really just walking along (and sometimes above) a river. But the water is blue and crystalline clear, and the scenery is unique and beautiful.

There’s an occasional waterfall or rapids or deep, still pool to keep things interesting.

We walked the length of it twice (once to the opposite end from our parking lot, then back again to return to our car.) It never got boring. And at the end of the walkway you're greeted with this lovely waterfall.

Ok, maybe I sometimes get excited about weird things. I especially seem to have a weakness for water and caves. But I found this exhilarating and unforgettable.

I loved Bled, and I loved Vintgar Gorge.

Slovenia is great.

Unfortunately, our time in the country is drawing to a close—but we do have one more place to visit before we go. It’s another cave, but quite different than the last one. You’ll have to wait a little longer to read about it, though.