Slovenia
Ljubljana & Lake Bled
From May 31st to June 2nd, 2023
Day 1
Crossed over the Dragon Bridge with 4 dragon statues on each corner of the bridge. Walked past another beautiful bridge with hundreds of love loves on it. Parked at the grocery store parking garage, walked around the main town, walked past large main farmers markets selling produce to t-shirts
Picked up a small snack of street food, fried rice from Chutys and meat (fingers) sandwich from Dobra
Walked up to a company selling riverboat tours along the river (there are many), so we took 45 min riverboat around the river that runs around Ljubljana.
On our hike up from town up to the Ljubljana Castle we passed and went into St. Nicholas Church that had massive iron doors with interesting art designs on them, like the stages of life that a pope will go through. Hiked 15 minutes up to the Ljubljana castle and enjoyed the view from the top. We could’ve taken the cable car, but we were looking forward to the exercise and the scenery was beautiful and lush. Entrance to the castle was free, but to to go the very top you have to buy a ticket. We went into the prison, the royalty prison, a chapel, and other interesting well preserved rooms in the castle.
After walking around the castle for a bit in the drizzly rain, we stopped at a cafe up top, Granjska Vinoteca, for wine tasting of 5 Slovenian wines. The wine glasses were full pours, so we quickly started feeling good. There are many places to eat in the castle area, which was a surprise, and there was even a Michelin recommended restaurant up there as well.
After hearing a significant amount of noise coming from down below the castle, being the tourists that we are, we decided to walk towards the noise to see what was going on. The local Slovenians suggested that it might be a protest. We wanted to see what the action was about so we went and saw hundreds of Slovenians protesting in Republic Square the change of their pension and retirement agreements. Similar to what is happening all over France. It was actually a peaceful and beautiful protest with most everyone waving their own Slovenian flag and musicians playing traditional Slovenian tunes. We had to stop and ask somebody if they could translate what was going on.
We took some final pictures in Ljubljana and hopped back in the car to make our way to Lake Bled. During the drive it reminded us of a few other places we’ve been: Blackberry Farms, Interlaken, Murren. There were little wooden a-frame homes that could have been plucked from a small northwestern town like Stockbridge Massachusetts.
Once we got to the lake, it felt like what other lake towns feel like. Lake Arrowhead, Lake Tahoe, etch, all had similarities to Lake Bled.
Once arriving at our bed & breakfast Villa Pomona we checked into our cute cottage of a room and it looked like we may have had the place to ourselves.
We went for a walk around the lake and took a row boat out to the Blejski Otok island that houses the Church of the Assumption and museum about the history of the island. The water was so crystal clear and the beers we grabbed for the ride hit the spot. We went inside the church and nobody else was in there. We were invited (by instruction signs) to ring the bell by pulling on a rope from the ceiling 3 times. After pulling the rope down three times, the bell rang overhead through the church and outside.
We climbed the clock tower next door and watched it as it struck quarter past the hour and went through its motions.
A very spiritual place, we learned that the Church of the Assumption was on a typical pilgrimage route people would take
After the 45 minute boat ride (15 minutes to get there, 15 minutes to walk around, and 15 minute boat ride back), we made it back to mainland and continued walking around the town to find dinner. There were so many local cute places there to choose from, but we found the highest rated one: Pizzeria Rustika.
Day 2
Woke up and went for a 4.5 mile run around the whole lake. Took an hour and there were also a good number of others getting their exercise in around the lake. The morning views were stunning.
Ate breakfast at our bed & breakfast and went for our 9am zip lining tour through the woods nearby with Zipline Dolinka Bled.
There were 7 ziplines total and we were taking our turns along with a few others to scale across the river on the iron rope course.
Once we got back to town we stopped at Mega Burger to have a nice well deserved meal. They were also taking pictures of their food at the time and it seemed like a news review article was being written about them also.
We sat by the pool in the afternoon and lounged around our room for a while until we headed back into the city for another walk around and dinner. We stopped at an absolutely delicious and authentic place called Oštarija Peglez’n and we are so happy that we found this place. We started with soups, salad, and finished off with incredible tasting pasta; fettuccine with truffle and spaghetti pommodoro.
We came across a children’s musical concert outside and stopped to enjoy watching the locals showcase their children’s talents.
As the sun went down we sat to have a nightcap or two at a bar called Devil Bar. Their outdoor patio area had plenty of seats and made way for perfect people watching. The stars were bright at night and the castles also lit the sky.
Day 3 - AUSTRIA PASS THROUGH
Woke up to drive from Lake Bled to Bratislava. We ended up passing through Austria on our way to Slovakia and found ourselves a summer toboggan to go through. We weren’t sure if it was open (it was raining again) because other summer toboggan around the area hadn’t opened yet either. But we took our chances and stopped in St. Corona am Wechsel and to our surprise, we were the only ones there ready to dominate the luge. Just as we got in our carts, the rain stopped and the sun shone through. We whipped our way through the sled going up to 40kmh. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we paid to go again.
We carried back on in the car to make our way to Bratislava and our stomachs were growling. We stopped in a small town (Purbach am Neusiedler See) because we saw a nice looking food truck selling doner kebab and there were many people eating outside (just outside Restaurant Braunstein Pauli’s Stuben) . The sandwich was delicious and we enjoyed it almost as much as we did watching the Italian Hells Angels posse roll up. There must have been about 40 of them on bikes, also headed to Bratislava for a global event.
We even passed through a small town Max recognized, Wendel, that is where a favorite TV show of his took place: Dark (a German show).