After spending time in some of Central Europe’s cities, with their hustle/bustle, many food options, and tourist throngs, it was time for us to leave the cities and have some “outdoor” time – back to our sweet spot of trekking and a more relaxed experience.
For this, we needed a car.
While Eurail/train experience worked well for the inter-city travel, a car is a must when heading to trailheads. As typical, car rental companies charge extra for different pick-up/drop-off locations – more so when those are in different countries. So, to avoid those fees, we traveled by train from Budapest to Graz, Austria, where we rented a car and promptly left Austria to drive to Bled, Slovenia. We’d be returning the car later in our trip at the Innsbruck airport – pickup/dropoff within Austria. boom.
We’d heard about Lake Bled and it’s natural beauty during our trekking in the Dolomites. That trip had included a stop in Piran, Slovenia which led people to ask if we also visited Lake Bled. We got the impression it was very popular with the European trekking crowd. And now, having visited, we can understand why!
Lake Bled, and its surrounding areas, including the Triglav National Park, should be on everyone’s bucket list.
Read on to see why.
Bled is in the eastern portion of the Triglav park and is part of a valley which extends westward, deeper into the park and including Lake Bohinj.
We were able to find a cute one-bedroom apartment on booking.com – just a few meters from the lake, and a little less than a mile outside of Bled center (meaning, less busy).
The lake itself is roughly 4 miles in circumference – an easy and very popular walk – and what seems to be a popular day-trip from Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital city. Picturesque from nearly any location, the lake has a glacial turquoise color to it, enriching all photos.
The icing on this lake cake is a small island and the Župnija Bled – the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s simply iconic. The frequently-visited island is accessible by hired row boat and is the site of regular masses.
As we began to explore the surroundings and as our first real hike, we visited Vintgar Gorge – about an hour’s walk from our apartment on the lake.
Carved during the last ice age, the gorge is a 1600-meter-long and up to 250-meter-deep canyon located on the eastern edge of the Triglav National Park. Most of the gorge was traversed on a walkway – visible in the photo – and yes, we were obliged to wear a helmet to protect against head injury from some of the overhanging rocks.
Following our exploration of Bled and the Vintgar Gorge, for our next day’s adventure, we headed eastward from Bled to Lake Bohinj and the village of Bohinj – with a more laid-back vibe compared with Bled, seemingly geared more toward sports enthusiasts, such as rock climbing, hiking, etc.
Armed with some trekking poles rented at a local outfitter, we drove about 30 minutes to Lake Bohinj and the starting point for our hike which was, truthfully, assisted by the Vogel Ski Resort gondola (!).
The route was to take us to the Vogel ski station, then further south to a ridge, turning eastward, then a descent northward, back to the car. You can see the full route on alltrails.com.
Leaving the car at the end point (black dot on the route), we followed a path westward roughly 2 miles to the Vogel Gondola base station. While the gondola was filled (roughly 70 people!), it certainly made the elevation gain easy.
Some of our fellow gondoliers (?) would enjoy the amazing scenery of the Julian Alps at the upper station, and others, including ourselves headed toward another small chair to Orlove Glave – a small restaurant at about 5,200 ft. I imagine this restaurant to be very popular during ski season!
After a quick bowl of goulash, we set off, but not before ringing the “Wishing Bell”. The bell, which has gained stature as visitors’ stories of fulfilled wishes, is a dedication to Franc Sodja.
Moving on, we gained a bit more elevation, turned south eastward, and were rewarded with a stunning view of the ridge and our next path ahead.
and yes, event a bit of leftover snow – late May. Not unlike parts of the New Hampshire White Mountains.
Not more than 20 minutes or so on the ridge, we turned north-eastward and immediately began to descend. It was nearly 4,000′ of elevation loss over 4 miles – a rough downhill, made more challenging by the loose gravel rock on much of the path.
it had been a long, and fairly hard hike – about 9.5 walking miles and an elevation change of 4,100ft over 6hrs 20mins. The gondola helped immensely on the elevation gain, just a fairly hard hike all around. It was good to be back at the car and enjoying our favorite post-hike beverage – Compari and Soda 🙂
For our last day in Bled, we walked around the lake, including the trek up the stairs to Bled Castle, roughly 5 miles in total. A nice “cool down” from the previous day’s trip at the Vogel.
As it happened, there was a medieval festival at the castle on that day – drawing in some olde artisans as well as cultural dancers and “court” enactments. The castle dates to the 11th century, oldest in Slovenia, and includes a museum dedicated to the castle’s role in the early centuries.
The walk around the lake was a great way to book-end our visit – we even included an hour row boat rental. A beautiful afternoon to a picture book location – Lake Bled, Slovenia.
