Lake Bled

After Vintgar Gorge I had the rest of the day to do Lake Bled stuff, more time as well now that I wasn't going to Pokljuka Gorge.

First I went up to the castle, this was a bit of a waste of time from the castle aspect, I was never planning to go inside the castle and there wasn't too much to see up close to it. It did give me some really nice views of the lake when heading down, so got some really nice photos, so not a total waste of time.

The map shows the locations I'll refer to in this post

It was really nice to just take a leisurely walk around the lake, after I went down from the castle I went in a anti clockwise direction.

This post is likely to have a load of pictures the same but from different angles

Bled in flowers

Photo taken in the morning when I got to Bled, before heading to Vintgar Gorge
Showing Bled Castle and Bled Island

Bled Island

Bled Castle

Plenta boats heading to Bled Island

From the map at the top of the post you can see there are 3 marked viewpoints. I wanted to walk to each of these. It was a massive uphill/climb to get to them but I did it. Was really cool to get to the first one to see the sights. The second was pretty hard to find as the clear pathways had been "hidden"/disturbed with the rainy weather in past few days so was harder to find. I was maybe going to skip the third and go back down the way I came up but glad I didn't as it was great views as well.

Start of walking trail to viewpoints

The 3 viewpoints I wanted to go to

Ojstrica Viewpoint

Velika Osojnica Viewpoint

Bled Island

Velika Osojnica Viewpoint

Found this cute teddy sitting on a tree stump, after the Velika Osojnica Viewpoint, he looked so lonely in the forest by himself, so he came home with me, I think I'll name him Bleddy Teddy

Mala Osojnica Viewpoint

At times were rooty trails, which were wet, so had to take care

Stairs heading part the way down

Looking back up the stairs

Bled Island

Bled Island showing the 99 steps that head up to the Church of the Mother of God

Bled Castle

Plenta boats at the end of the day

Bled Heart

The end of my day at Bled

I didn't go to Bled Island. The Plenta boats cost €18 for a return trip and I didn't think there would be much to do on the island really so it felt a bit of a waste. I was also maybe going to go up Straža (a hill), there was an option for a chairlift up and then the toboggan down. This looked like it could be fun, the trip down takes about 1m 15sec from a Youtube video I watched. Time just wasn't on my side to do that as well.

Showing Straža and where the toboggan is (in the gap obviously)

Lake Bled Webcam image (showing chairlift up on left and Toboggan down). Bled Castle is in top left of the pic

I had been keeping an eye on the Lake Bled Webcam before my trip to see how things looked there and to get psyched up for it all. People who know me know I like my webcams of tourist spots etc. You will see that theme come up in various other city posts.

Checked online for the bus times and the next one was at 7:30pm, so headed towards the bus station and relaxed a bit with a drink (was desperate for a drink as hadn't found any taps for a while) got the 7:30pm bus back to Ljubljana.

Didn't really want this flavoured water but was what the vending machine gave me
Likely I messed up the Croatian to English about what button did what, was nice anyway

I had a really great day in the Bled area. I stayed there a lot longer than I had anticipated but it was all fantastic and well worth a visit there. Looking back at my overall plan I may have gone from Ljubljana airport direct to Bled (as a bus that went there I think) and then spent 2 days there then gone to Ljubljana. Hindsight.