A foggy Easter at Lake Bled

A couple of weeks ago we visited Slovenia over the long Easter weekend. We have wanted to visit for a while as we had heard it was beautiful and known for its amazing food and wine. Plus it is surrounded by Italy and Croatia, two of our favourite countries.

We planned to go in Spring before the Summer tourist season, unaware that all of Europe and the UK would have the longest Winter on record. So unfortunately instead of Spring sunshine and blooming flowers, we got a lot of fog and rain and a bit of snow thrown in just for good measure.

Our hotel in Lake Bled - very Austrian looking!

We arrived at Ljubljana airport on Good Friday in the late afternoon and headed straight to Lake Bled for two nights. We booked a private transfer because it was much faster than the bus, and didn't really want to wait for public transport on Good Friday in the cold and rain.

We arrived at Lake Bled to discover it looked almost exactly like the lakeside towns of St Gilgen and St Wolfgang in Austria, where we visited in June last year.

Our hotel especially felt like we were in Austria, with similar furnishings and design to where we stayed in St Gilgen. It was a very weird feeling and I kept forgetting we were in Slovenia. Everyone was speaking Croatian but everywhere looked Austrian!

We headed out to explore some of the town, slightly surprised to find it almost entirely deserted. The owner of our hotel confirmed Lake Bled is not really a popular destination outside of the Summer season, so it felt like we had the whole town to ourselves.

Luckily we brought all our Winter clothes!

We were pretty hungry since all we had eaten that day was a Pret sandwich at Stansted Airport in London, so the first thing we did was stop for something to eat. We had planned on having a proper meal, however that went out the window once we saw the amazing cakes on offer at the small cafe we stopped at. Lake Bled is famous for their Bled Cake, or Kremšnita. 

It is an amazing cake made from vanilla and custard and was created in Bled by the Park Hotel. Slovenian's travel from all over the country to eat this fantastic cake.

Slovenia does amazing cakes and desserts in general, we had at least one piece of cake everyday, whether it was at lunch or dinner, and I don't think we ever had the same type twice in four days.

After scoffing down our cake, we continued our walk around the town. The Lake was really foggy, but you could just make out Lake Bled island in the middle of the lake. In Summer there are boats all over the lake, but in Winter it was too cold to be on the Lake this late in the afternoon.

Lake Bled is only a small town, and easily explored in a few hours so once we'd built up our appetite again, we headed off to find some real food for dinner.

We stopped at a restaurant recommended by our hotel owner. We always ask for recommendations of places to eat before heading out to dinner, as we hate going somewhere really touristy where the food is only geared towards tourists. There are a lot of restaurants like that in Venice.

The food was so delicious, again very similar to Austrian food. With a lot of sausages, stews and goulash. Bradley had the pork sausages with potatoes and coleslaw and I had the Beef goulash, both with a glass of Slovenian red wine. Slovenia is a really foodie destination, and our weekend was quickly turning into a gastronomic weekend. 

We have tried to find Slovenia wine since returning to London and have not been successful so far. If you find some Slovenian red wine I suggest you try it as it is delicious.

After managing to eat a lot of food in only a few hours, we rolled ourselves home through the snow to bed.

We woke up early the next morning, eager to explore some more of Bled, but we also wanted to visit the Bled Castle and Lake Bohinj, another Lake further to the West of Bled.

We weren't able to see the Castle the previous day and had wondered where it was, however as the fog was not as bad as the previous day it was pretty obviously directly overlooking the Lake.

Lake Bled island, slightly more visible in the morning

We started the long walk up to Bled Castle. The path starts on a gentle slope and soon turns into a lot of stairs spaced at an annoying angle so it was like we were taking lots of tiny steps, but too far to take two at a time.

Exhausted

By the time we got to the top our jackets and scarves had come off and we were starting to sweat... I was also regretting not bringing my Asthma inhaler with me. My hair had started our nicely curled when we left the house, but the climb meant they had all but disappeared leaving slightly frizzy straight hair in their wake. Not impressed.

Bradley not at all as puffed as me

The Castle walls reminded us of the Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany, very similar looking covered pathways.

The view at the top of the Castle was amazing, on a clear day you would be able to see for miles, and even on a foggy day the view was still fantastic. We had a good view out over Bled and also a clearer view of Bled Island.

We almost had the Castle to ourselves as it was still early so we spent a long time admiring the views and catching our breath.

Bled Castle is apparently the oldest Castle in Slovenia, and part of it was destroyed by a fire in 1947. It has since been extensively refurbished and modernised and also has a museum inside.

I love the Easter traditions over Europe, lots of colourful painted eggs hung on trees both inside and outside. We have brought several on our travels in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. The most amazing ones we have seen were in Salzburg, hand painted real eggs, too delicate to think about trying to bring home.

A tiny toilet with a LONG drop

After visting the Castle we headed back down to the Lake and found the fog had lifted considerably. Our next stop was Bled Island and the Church of the Assumption. 

We hopped on one of the small boats going backwards and forwards between the town and the island and were there in about 20 minutes. We found a lot more people had arrived in the town during the morning, and the boat was full of people heading over to the island.

These ducks were just chilling on the rail

Traditional Pletna boats, like large Gondola's, powered only by one person rowing

A local tradition means that in Summer, local grooms carry their brides up these 99 steps, and the bride must remain completely silent in order to bring them happiness in the future. Unsurprisingly  only a handful of grooms manage to do this. Bradley and I did not attempt this feat, it's a lot of stairs!

The Church of the Assumption of Mary has a local superstition that if you ring the bell inside the church one of your wishes will come true. We couldn't pass up the chance for a free wish, so we lined up and rang the bell with everyone else. 

It's hard to describe the joy you feel in ringing a huge church bell and hearing it ring across the Lake. We couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces.

Once we had made our wish, we headed back to Bled to catch a bus to Lake Bohinj. Bohinj is a much larger lake than Lake Bled, and is about 45 minutes on the bus through the stunning Slovenia countryside. 

There was thick snow on the ground, we only had a light snowfall while we were there, so they must have had a serious snowfall in the few days before our arrival to have it be so thick.

Our bus dropped us off in Ribcev Laz, the first town on the lake. All the towns on the Lake are even smaller than Bled and there wasn't much to see, we were really only there to see the amazing Bohinj scenery.

The Holy Spirit Church

Lake Bohinj was beautiful, and I took almost a hundred photos just of the Lake. I can't imagine how it can be any more beautiful in Summer, however you would be able to see more of the surrounding mountain ranges.

We walked down to the lakeside so we could get a closer look at the lake. The water was so clear, and even though it was freezing I wanted to jump in, it looked so inviting.

So cold!

The next town of Stara Fuzina was only a twenty minute walk away. Stara Fuzina is definitely a Summer only destination, the entire town was deserted except for the locals, who stared at us suspiciously the whole time. It was a bit weird to be the only tourists so after exploring the town, we headed back to Ribcev Laz for some lunch.

The scenery looked like something out of Game of Thrones, we felt a bit like Jon Snow and were expecting White Walkers to appear any second!

There was only one restaurant in Ribcev Laz so we didn't have too much choice, but luckily as already proven, it was hard to have a bad meal in Slovenia. I had grilled veges covered in cheese, and Bradley had Turkey covered in cheese with potato dumplings. 

Both meals were so delicious, and as we weren't quite ready to leave and go back outside into the cold, we had coffee and cake afterwards.

More cake!

The last stop on our tour of the Slovenian countryside was Radovljica, a small medieval town twenty minutes out of Bled. It has known for its picturesque Old Town centre and view out of the Dežela plain and the Sava river valley, with views of the Julian Alps dominating the background in all directions.

Well the fog had returned and the view we had was less than impressive.. so we walked around the Old Town which was deserted, and had huge piles of snow lying in the street. The buildings were pretty and well looked after and it made a change from the tiny Bohinj towns we had just visited.

We arrived back in Bled in time for dinner, so we stopped at a little pizza place recommended on Tripadvisor. The pizzas were huge and we regretted not sharing one between us, but they were yummy and it wasn't too hard to finish them off.

Overall we had a great time in Bled, even in the off season, though I imagine it has even more to offer in Summer, just with a lot more people.