A Short Visit to Lake Bled, Slovenia
By Chris Wildgen, McMaster Alumna, travel writer, photographer and tour leader
With its castle overlooking the lake and the iconic Church of Our Lady of the Lake on the island, Lake Bled is definitely a fairytale setting. In my few days there, I walked around the lake, ate and drank traditional, local products and ventured beyond Bled to see the less-touristy Lake Bohinj.
Two friends and I rented an apartment on a farm 1 kilometre outside of town, amidst green farmland and horses, including a Lippizaner, which I learned is from Slovenia during the Habsburg empire and not from Austria as I had previously thought.
Enjoying an aperitivo on the large balcony, we looked over the pastures to the hills between us and the lake and conjectured about the purpose of the wooden structures in the field, never imagining they are for piling wood, which we learned the next day after a wrong turn that almost ended up in a field.
Following our host’s recommendation for traditional local food, we drove into the small town for dinner, looking first in the bakery for the famous Slovenian cream cake, Kremsnita, which resembles a cross between a Napoleon and a cream pie.
A few steps up the street, we walked into the cozy, alpine ambience of Restaurant Mula. Since it was October, the salad special was “boletus” mushrooms, what we know as porcini, a firm mushroom with tubes instead of gills. The boletus mushrooms were sautéed, served warm over arugula atop polenta crepes and topped with chunks of mild gorgonzola. That dish alone made us return the next night!
The other traditional items of hearty and stew-like veal soup and sausages with sauerkraut were also excellent, as were the Laško beer and two Slovenian red wines.
And here as everywhere in Slovenia, we drank the fresh and clean tasting water directly from the tap. The waiter claimed that the water was the reason that Heineken purchased the Slovenian Laško brewery, and, of course, why the beer is good!
The next morning, we parked at the far end of the lake by the Olympic rowing training center, where its outdoor display board showed Slovenia’s Olympic rowing medalists. What a perfect and beautiful place to train, with many permanent racing lanes marked in the calm lake!
The easy, 5 km walk around the lake is mostly tree-covered, shading us from the sun. It took us approximately 2 hours due to frequent photo stops, especially for photos of the iconic church from every angle around the lake. We passed several large Austrian-looking mansions and buildings that reflect their time as part of the Habsburg empire. Some are maintained and are hotels or public buildings, others made me dream of bringing them back to their former glory in their serene gardens and surroundings.
Near the end of the lake, modern sculptures on a huge lawn contrasted with the 11th-century castle above it and the 18th-century boathouse just beyond and somehow all fit together.
At the midway point, the waterfront casino seems out of place but the cafes are a nice location to enjoy a lakeside coffee. The less manicured and more nature-focused second half of the walk brought us closer to the island. And everywhere on the lake, fishermen seemed happy to let their rods do the fishing without them!
By the time we finished our walk at about 1 pm, it was quite busy. After a quick trip up to the castle and a quick lunch at the apartment, we set out for Lake Bohinj in the Julian Alps, about a 45 minute drive through farmland, a small village and hills.
Here, too, the air and water were clean and pristine. Even though there was a big parking lot for buses, there were fewer people. It felt like a more dramatic and undiscovered Lake Bled, without the island. There was no path around it, but there were opportunities for other outdoor activities, such as hiking trails, a rock-climbing wall and center and places to rent boats. After coffee and a Kremnista at the large café overlooking the lake, we returned to Bled and another Boletus salad at Restaurant Mula.
Lake Bled is a place where I would like to spend more time. The freshness and purity of the air and water, the serenity of the surroundings, the outdoor activity options, the fresh, clean and delicious food and drink and the friendliness of the people all enhance the fairytale setting.
After an international career in sports medicine and sales and marketing, McMaster graduate Chris Wildgen is following her dream of connecting with people and diving into local cultures around the world through travel. Now a digital nomad, Chris is a travel writer, photographer and tour leader. With a natural flair for languages, she can converse in German, French, Italian, Spanish and English. Visit her site www.travelbetterlivebetter.com.
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