Fairytale Trail

Today after our routine of getting dressed and breakfasted, we hopped in Otto and headed northbound for about 45 minutes, almost to the Austrian border, to the town of Bled.  We passed more adorable alpine looking towns with chalet-style houses and a big orthodox-looking church in the middle of town.  

Once we reached Bled, we headed straight for the lake (fittingly called Lake Bled).  We found great parking and started snapping photos and breathing in the fresh clean air right away.

On the one end of the lake is a medieval castle perched high on a cliff, but it's what's in the middle of the lake that we were most interested in: a tiny island with a church, belltower and cafe.

There is a special kind of boat that takes you across the lake called a pletna.  They have been built the same way for centuries, and a proud guild of oarsmen will ferry you to the island for a small fee.  These pletna rowers are all part of a Lake Bled pletna union - they pool their earnings, give a cut to the tourism board and evenly divide up the rest of the funds between them.  There have been other ferries who come in and try and undercut the pletnas, but the locals know which pletnas are the original.

We picked a pletna and shared it with an American couple, an Israeli couple, a Belgian couple and a large Saudi family.  Our rower used short strong bursts with large oars to push us across the lake.  We decided we would not want to be challenged to an arm wrestle with one of these guys.

The scenery is stuff that fairytales are made of.  The leaves have just started to change and the air is crisp, but not yet cold.  Most of the other buildings on the lake are pretty romantic looking as well, except for some of the communist era hotels (Ron jokes they are long on concrete, short on style).  Former Yugoslav president-for-life Tito has a villa on the lake, which has been turned into a hotel.

Also on the lake we noticed some yellow lane markers - the lake has hosted the World Rowing Championship several times.

Once we docked on the island we were given a paltry 30 minutes to explore, so we headed up the steaps and took a look at the Church of the Assumption of Mary, then headed into the cafe to try one of the two cakes that are native to the lake - a walnut roll with cream, usually eaten around Christmastime.  The cafe sold a coffee table book about the cake, recipes and cake accessories.  We ordered our slice and quickly ate it as the clock was counting down.  We give the cake a 5/10.

Back on the pletna boat (we had to wait a while for the large family to get there) and we were on our way back to the mainland.  We struck up a conversation with the American couple, who had been in Slovenia for a few weeks and stated of all the places they have traveled (and it sounded like a lot), Slovenia was the most beautiful.  It's difficult to disagree.

One animal we saw a lot of at the lake were swans.  They were everywhere.  If you stop anywhere along the lakes banks, they will swim up to you, hoping that you feed them.

Back on the mainland and it was time for a late lunch and to try the other cake native to the area, the Bled cream cake.  We noticed that we were just a few days early for the Bled cream cake festival.  Well shit.  We headed to the Panorama Restaurant that overlooks the lake and ordered some soup, and then the famous cake.

As you can see from the photo, it is cream and custard sandwiched between pastry.  It is delectable.

After our cakes and a cup of coffee, we headed back to Otto and decided to take a scenic cruise around the Julian Alps.  The road was generally pretty good, although there were a few nerve-wracking switchbacks and hairpins turns.  Again, the scenery was nothing short of stunning - red, yellow and orange leaves, green hills, picturesque vistas.  We drove up and around Mount Triglav (the mountain on their flag), slowed down to take long looks at the beautiful little villages with their flower-lined balconies and Slovenia's traditional roofed hay-drying racks.

We wanted to get back into Ljubljana before it started to get dark, so we decided to end our Alpine odyssey and head back home via Bled.  

Conveniently enough, right next to our B&B there is popular pub, so we settled in there for dinner and a couple (4) pints.  We ate, polished off our brews and turned in.