Bled, Slovenia

Thursday, August 4th 2011, Bled Slovenia
Yesterday morning, after breakfast and a sauna, we caught the 12:30 train from Zagreb to Ljubljana. The land was fairly flat through western Croatia and then got more mountainous as we followed a fairly narrow river valley in Slovenia. At the border, the Croatian and then the Slovenian police who came on the train didn’t take long to check our passports. Passports from some countries, like Turkey for instance, are checked very thoroughly and the passport numbers called in to somewhere. The Russian visa in my passport always gets a 2nd look but there’s never any comment. There’s nothing like a Canadian passport.
The Slovenian scenery in the river valley was really nice until we were within a few minutes of the Ljubljana station. We arrived at the station at 2:49, intending to take the 3:15 bus to Bled, which we had seen listed on the bus company web site timetable. It was a fairly long walk from the platform to the bus station out front so we were getting tickets at 2:57 when the ticket agent told us there was no 3:15 bus, only a 3:00 and a 4:00. Anita ran to the right platform to stop the bus and I followed as soon as I had the tickets and my change. Luckily we had 20 euros (since we had been using Croatian kuna for weeks) because they only took cash. But it cost only 14 euros for our tickets so we were okay. We just made the bus and got to the Bled Union bus stop about 4:15.
The B&B Mlinar Bled Pension we had reserved had interesting directions posted on their Hostelworld web page. They said (literally):
“Get off bus at Union bus stop (remind driver). There is ribno crossing. Follow the ribno road sign but in the very cross road immediately (after 10 metres) to the right. Then follow the banners “Pension Mlinar” as long as you see the house.”
Oddly enough, all this made some kind of sense when we got off the bus and we found our pension without much trouble. We’re in a fairly new, large house just on the outskirts of Bled. The owner lives on the first floor and has six rooms for rent on the second floor, and a breakfast room in the basement. We have an ensuite room, WIFI, TV, fridge and private balcony. It’s all very nice.
We scouted around a bit last night and ate dinner at some restaurant in the town commercial centre. This centre is built from a design for a town in Libya. When that deal fell through, the town of Bled bought the plans cheap. It’s known to the locals as the “Gaddafi”. After buying some supplies at the Mercator grocery store (of which there are many in Slovenia) we came back to our room.
This morning we had the breakfast here. It was not too bad. We’re only paying about $70 Cdn per night so this is a good deal. It’s only a 5 or 10 minute walk down to the lake and the centre of town.
After breakfast we walked all the way around Lake Bled, about 5 km in total. It took us the whole morning because we stopped a lot and looked around. We saw Bled Castle up on a peak overlooking the lake, the Church on the island in the lake, the Villa Bled hotel and the big rowing centre.
The Villa Bled used to be a royal residence (Habsburgs maybe) but after WWII became Tito’s summer place where he entertained visiting dignitaries from Communist countries during the Cold War. Nikita Krushchev, Raul Castro and others were here.
The rowing centre is a big deal. There are permanent buoys in place from one end of the lake to the other marking off standard 2 km racing lanes. There’s a big rowing club building and dock. In the sidewalk in front of the rowing centre are stainless steel strips engraved with the years that Bled rowers won medals at the Olympics. They’ve won a lot of medals. The world championships have been held here twice and will be held here again at the end of this month.
We also saw a couple of guys fishing. They each had an aluminum tripod stand that holds up to 4 rods. They set that up with a couple of rods and some kind of bait out in the water, just still fishing, then they lay down in a lawn chair nearby and fall asleep. I thought Canadian fishermen were lazy.
After lunch on our balcony overlooking the mountain peaks, we went out and found a couple of restaurants recommended in our guide books. We’ll try one tonight. After that there’s a band from Colombia playing in the park starting at 8:30. There’s a free summer music festival with different groups for the next few nights at least.
Tomorrow we have tickets for a bus tour of Mount Triglav (highest in Slovenia) National Park, the Slovenian portion of the Julian Alps, the Soca River Valley and as far as some mountain lake in Italy. It takes all day but should be very beautiful scenery.