Beautiful Bled

I arrived in Bled at lunchtime and headed to the hostel. It's a converted house and is really nice. I dropped everything off and headed down to the lake as it was a glorious sunny day. I sat and ate my lunch on a bench below the castle looking out over the sunny lake. It was very nice, if a little cold. I set off to walk around the lake to warm myself up a little. It was quite pleasant in the sunny patches but you had to walk a lot faster in the shady ones. There is a little island on the middle of the lake that has a little church on it which makes for great photos. The path is an easy walk and is pretty much flat most of the way. You get to see the church on the lake, the castle and the surrounding mountains as you go. You also get to see the village of Bled that is for the most part really ugly. Someone let them built some absolute monstrosities on the lake side at some point. It's best to avoid taking photos of them.

There are lots of accommodation places lining the lake and some of them must be really cold at this time of year. There are a couple of old stone places on the far side of the lake which from the look of the moss on the walls, don't get sunlight at all for most of the winter. You definitely need the sun here, even if it is just psychological warmth. It took just over an hour to get around the whole lake and through the touristy section of town. Most of the swans must have headed south for the winter as I had heard that there are heaps of them and I only saw two the whole way around. Plenty of ducks though. The ducks come out of the water and line up for bread if you stand stationary for long enough. I thought that one group were going to chase me because I didn't have anything for them.

I headed back up the hill to the hostel, stopping on the way at the really good Mercator supermarket. It actually has a really good selection for a little shop. I grabbed some food and headed back into the hostel, where it was nice and warm. I headed back out briefly to have some cake for my birthday. I went to a little place down the road from the hostel called Smon which was recommended as some of the best cake in town. It was good too. I had a chocolate and hazelnut layer cake and it was pretty good. It's a place where you order at the counter too so you can just point at what you want without having to know what it is. They had these incredible cream pastry things that look like vanilla slice only with more cream and about 4 inches thick. I was going to have one but didn't think that I would be able to finish it.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching DVDs in the hostel before making some dinner and heading to bed. All in all it was a good birthday.

The next morning, the nice weather had unfortunately left and it was cold and cloudy. There was even snow blowing in off the surrounding mountains. I decided that a hike would warm me up so I headed off to the Vintgar gorge. It's about 3km walk from Bled heading through the village of Podhom. It was a pleasant walk to get there except for the occasional snow bearing gusts of wind that were freezing my cheeks.

The gorge usually costs money to go through but is closed out of season which was nice. It also meant that I was the only person there. The walk is about 2.5km on mostly boardwalks off the sides of the gorge. They are meant to be slippery and wet but they weren't yesterday. I guess it hasn't rained for a while. The gorge is gorgeous with lots of bright blue water. The bottom is made up of very white rocks so the colour is not unlike a swimming pool. It has a series of rapids and then calm pools in between, where the water is so clear you can see the bottom. The walk did get a little harder once the gorge opened out a bit and you hit the leaves. The leaves from the trees above have been blown into drifts in the gorge and have mostly accumulated on the paths. It means that you have to wade through knee deep piles of them in places. Which would be fine if you knew what the path looked like, but when you don't makes the sudden appearance of stairs a little risky. The rocks on the path are also smooth river stones which are not the best thing to be walking on to start with let alone with slippery leaves on top of them.

At the far end of the gorge are a couple of small waterfalls, one of which is man made. It is just after these that I turned off and started to follow the trail back to Bled. It goes up and over the hill and stops at a little wooden roofed church called St Catherines. The church was locked but very pretty with the snow covered mountains behind it. It is then an easy walk along the edge of the road (it even has a footpath in sections) back through the village of Zasip to Bled. It took maybe 2.5 hours all up to do the walk though I was walking quickly in patches to try and keep warm. I was very grateful for the Bulgarian ski pants that's for sure.

I came back to the hostel and had some lunch and warmed up a little before heading up the hill to the castle. Unfortunately, you can't walk all the way around the outside because of the sheer cliff at the front and you can't see the lake without going into the castle because of the trees. I decided to wait and see if I could get a nicer day before paying to go into the castle (it's 6 euros) so I headed back down the hill after sitting around for a little while. The problem here at the moment is that you can't sit around for long before you start to get really cold and then it's just unpleasant.

While I was sitting there, though, a wedding party turned up for a reception in the castle (which would be pretty cool). They all had so many clothes on and the bride was wearing a fur over her dress to keep warm. She did really well to make it up the hill on the cobblestones while wearing stilettos. I wonder if she came and had a practice run.

Once back down the bottom, I walked around the edge of the lake back to the shops with a brief stop at the Church of St Martin. It's a really lovely art nouveau church on the inside with painted walls and a really impressive chandelier. There must have been some serious money in Bled at the turn of the last century. When I got to the supermarket, it was closed already so I headed back to the hostel and the closer supermarket which was still open.

Sunday morning was not a good morning weatherwise and it was forcast to just get worse, so I decided that short hikes near the hostel were the way to go. I headed out to walk up to one of the vantage points that gives a good view over the lake and the castle. It is one of the places where they take lots of the postcard photos of the Church. It was an easy enough walk around the lake to the far end and then up the hill for a little while to get to the viewpoint. The leaves on the trail made it a little harder in places but I got there in the end. It was nice and peaceful sitting looking over the lake until a group of Slovenian hikers appeared. They were the noisiest group of people that I have bumped into in ages. Thankfully, they only stayed for 10 minutes and I was back to my peace and quiet.

While I was sitting there, I could see the cloud closing in around the lake and then the temperature dropped dramatically and it started to snow. I decided that that was my cue to head back down off the hill. It was cute at first but it started to get heavier and by the time that I made it back to the edge of the lake, it was getting unpleasant. Even worse, I had to walk with my face into the snow laden wind the whole way back to the hostel. My body was warm enough but a small section of my face including my eyelashes was totally frozen.

It continued to snow quite heavily for most of the afternoon, so I spent it inside watching DVDs and keeping warm. It wasn't really settling on the ground here in town but the trees were getting covered with a dusting. The next morning, there was a little on the rooves and around the edges of the houses but not much. I headed off fairly early to Lake Bohinj to hike around the lake and up to the waterfall.  It is easy to get to Bohinj because most of the buses from Ljubljana go through to Bohinj before turning around and heading back to the city. I got off at Ribcev Laz which is the largest town on the edge of the lake. There isn't much there and at the moment most of it is closed.

I headed off around the edge of the lake. I walked on the northern side first as it is the more peaceful trail. There is no road on that side of the lake and pretty much no houses either once you get past the first section. The trail is pretty easy and is quite flat. There are a couple of places where you have to walk through dry stream beds but they aren't particularly hard. I assume when the snow melts they are full of water. There are several 'beaches' (ie small collections of pebbles) on the edge of the lake where people go swimming in the summer. I would want the water to be a lot warmer as it was seriously cold when I put my finger in. I saw one other person as I was walking around and it was really nice to be alone. I saw lots of birds and a couple of squirrels but most of the wildlife seems to be elsewhere. It took about 1.5 hours to get around to the far end of the lake and by the time I arrived the weather was lifting a little and you could see a bit more of the snow covered mountains surrounding the lake.

I sat in the little park at the far end and ate my sandwich accompanied by a couple of young ducks that seemed to be able to hear the rustling of a paper bag from a considerable distance and came racing in. One was very demanding and even came up and banged her beak against my foot to get me to stop ignoring her. I then headed onto the track to the waterfall. It is normally 2 euros to get in but the ticket booth is closed at the moment so you don't have to pay. The path is still open though.

It was quite a hike up the road to the waterfall and there was snow on the trail for most of the way. The sun came out briefly but it wasn't hitting me, just the trees above me that then started to drop all their snow (mostly on me it seemed). It did get a little warmer for about 30 minutes but then cooled back down again. The final section to the waterfall is all stairs and was quite a hike. I was grateful to get to the little view point at the top. It would have quite a nice view down to the lake on a clear day but the clouds had come in again so I couldn't see that much. The waterfall doesn't have a lot of water in it at the moment so isn't particularly spectacular but I imagine it is much more impressive in the spring.

I got cold while up at the top so set off again at speed down the hill again. It took about an hour to get down the village of Ukanc (well, really a couple of houses and a hotel) where nothing was open. I found that I had just missed a bus back to Bled so I set off to walk around the other side of the lake for a bit rather than freezing to death at the bus-stop. I got most of the way around before it was time for the next bus so I stopped at the stop near the hostel and got on there. The walk on the southern side of the lake isn't as nice as you are walking next to the road for most of the way and the trees are blocking most of the views of the lake. There is another longer path that goes through the trees further back from the road but I didn't want to take it and miss the bus.

The buses back to Bled go every hour pretty much during the week and leave the far end of the lake at twenty to the hour. So it is quite convenient for getting back too. I was very pleased to get onto the nice warm bus because I had sat at the bus stop for about 10 minutes and had cooled down considerably. It was cold and starting to get quite dark when I left Bohinj because at this time of the year, what little sun is making it into the valley disappears at about 2.30pm. I came back to Bled and warmed up in the hostel and didn't leave again. I washed some clothes and sat and chatted with some of the others who are staying here and that was it for the evening.

On my final day in Bled it was just me in the hostel. They are starting some renovations while it is quiet and the others who had been staying all moved on in the morning. I didn't head out of the hostel until lunchtime as the weather forecast had it decidedly wrong (I didn't see any patches of sun!). I walked up the hill and went to the castle (6 euros to get in all year around which is a bit steep given that it isn't that big a castle). The first castle on the site was built in 1011 but the current castle dates from much later than that as the original has been hit by several earthquakes and almost been destroyed.

The views over the lake from the terraces are great and it's a shame that it wasn't a clear day as none of my photos came out particularly well. There is a little museum in one of the old buildings which has some interesting exhibits on the history of the local area. The little info kiosks things also have an interesting video on the history of the castle and it's various incarnations. It does shout at you a bit though and I couldn't find a volume. Upstairs is a fairly dull collection of old furniture and paintings but it's worth going up for the views from the windows. There is also a little printing workshop where you can have prints made and chat to the printer who can explain how the original 16th century printing presses worked. It's quite interesting (and very warm inside). That's about it unless you want to go to the wine cellar or the restaurant. There is one point where you can climb up onto the battlements and look but the view from that side of the castle isn't that good.

I walked back down the very steep hill. Just a hint for those coming to Bled, to walk up to the castle it is much much  easier to take the path that come up the back of the hill and leaves from behind Pension Bledec. It is not as steep and is a wider path. The front path that starts near the lake next to the Church of St Martin, is very steep and narrow and far too much work for my liking. I went back into the church of St Martin which was still very dark but I could see the paintings a bit better this time. It's a very lovely church.

I walked down through town to go to the post office and get some stamps and then back to the hostel via the supermarket to get some food for the train journey to Venice. I spent the rest of the afternoon repacking and starting to plan the Spanish section of the trip which starts in just over a week. I had the computer to myself for hours which made things a lot easier. This morning, I've got up fairly early and am heading to the train station and onto Nova Gorica to cross the border into Italy.