Six months in Bled Part 1
Seven o'clock on a Saturday morning and the Wishing Bell is tolling.
About twenty minutes before the luxury coach had drawn up across from Pension Mlino and untidily spilled its cargo of Japanese tourists who took a few steps to the flat bottomed Pletna boats that would ferry them to the island.
The visitors fill two pletnas — each seat about 20 passengers. The captain — the Pletnarstvo — with two gondola like oars stehrudders the passengers through the flat waters at a steady rate of two or three knots. The trip from Mlino takes about ten minutes, twice that from Bled Spa where there is another departure point. Stepping off the boat cameras a-clicking, they are faced with a 100 steps to the Church of the Assumption, the bell rope and the Wishing Bell.
The bell rings three times for each who wants to wish, then it’s the descent of 100 steps, back abord the pletna for the return journey, and fifty minutes after stepping off the bus they are re-boarding the bus in Mlino, finding their seats, final clicks of the camera and they are on their way in the direction of Bled Cream Cake.
You can spend a day in Bled and do everything; The Island, the Church, the Bell, the Cream Cake, the Castle, feed the ducks, photograph the swans, take the “train” around the lake or even a horse drawn carriage. You can even get married or swim in the lake. You can do everything in one day. Yet you can spend six months there and still not manage to do all you want to.
Pletna Sidebar — the story of the Pletna Boats