Slovenia: Lake Bled

Wednesday night, while lying in bed, Jeff decided to go on a trip…Friday morning. On Thursday I spent my time searching cheap hotels and looking up cool places to stop by with their addresses and the history behind them. It was a 4 hour drive from our home, and our first stop was Lake Bled in Slovenia. I like letting the pictures tell some of the story:

We have been trying to decide when and where to go on another trip lately. We wanted to go somewhere close and inexpensive and decided that Slovenia and Italy would be a good choice, we just didn't know when would be the best time. On a Wednesday night, I decided that taking that Friday off of work would be the best and that we should go. Plus, it was the last weekend with our car before we returned it to the dealership. It gets really good kilometerage and so I wanted to use it to save money on gas. (We are now driving a car that some of the American workers used).

So we left early Friday morning to head to Lake Bled, Slovenia. We have wanted to go here for several months and were very excited to finally get the chance. 

this is just off of the internet--to give you the whole view

A fortress on top of the cliff to Jeff's right.

There is a fortress on the cliffs by the lake with Bled Castle at the top.

Our first intention was to have lunch on the shore. Some ducks came and shared with us. The next destination was summer tobogganing down the ski slope right by the lake. It gave a sweet view of the lake as we rode the lift up the mountain. Tobogganing was awesome. I didn’t hit the brake as much as I thought I would!

On our walk around the lake, we came to a ski resort. Josie had researched it and had found that in the summer, they have one person roller-coaster rides on a track down the mountain. We watched some of the people come down the mountain and decided to each buy a ride. We took the chairlift up to the top and enjoyed the view of Lake Bled. When we got to the top, I went first and weaved my way down the mountain. It was a blast. I could have done it all day.

You can see the metal track that curves down the mountain.

Cool looking hotel next to the lake. 

We walked around part of the lake and took pictures.

cool tunnel

the island and church 

in this picture you can see the fortress just to the left of the church, up on that little hill 

We found a boat rental spot. Jeff rowed out to the island, and we walked around it.

Josie enjoying the ride out to the island. However, she rowed us back and I enjoyed the ride.

 

This is a natural island. They built a church on it, with 99 steps leading up to the chapel. Tradition says that a groom that carries his bride up the 99 steps to the church will have good marriage for the rest of his life. Jeff wanted to carry me up of course, but I said we were already married so it wouldn’t count:)

the church

the church is dedicated to Mary (behind me)

We thought that would be a pretty sweet set up--that house built on rocks in the middle of the forest with a perfect view of the lake and island

There is a “wishing bell” in the church that you can ring in order to get your wish, but it costs money to go inside, so we just listened to all of the lucky people ringing the bell, knowing that their wishes were sure to come true.

It was my turn to row back. It was a struggle at first, but once I put my body into it like I had seen them do on “Ben Hur” in the slave ship, I got it down. Parked it very nicely, too, I might add. It was so fun.

Taken by a Canadian couple

We walked back to our car, enjoying the scenery and avoiding sun-bathers as much as possible. We wanted to see Vintgar Gorge and Iglica Falls, but they could not be found.

Josie had researched the area and found that there was a cool waterfall called Iglica Falls. We typed the address into the GPS that we borrowed from my co-worker and started driving. It took us off of the main road and up through a village with very narrow and steep streets. I kept telling Josie that there should be more cars around if this is a tourist attraction, but the GPS told us to keep going, so we did. We kept going up and up and up into the mountains. I drove up the switch-backs until we came to what the GPS called "our destination," a.k.a. a random point in the forest. 

Since there were no people, no waterfall in sight, and nowhere to turn around, I kept driving. Eventually we came to houses on top of the mountain and we were able to take some cool pictures and turn around.

So, we went on our way to our little hotel in the country; it was surrounded by fields of corn and mountains,  and only a few minutes away from Slovenia’s capital city, Ljubljana (Loob-li-on-uh). After we checked in at the hotel, that was our next stop.