On my final day in Slovenia, I opted to spend the morning relaxing in Ljubljana and to do a half-day afternoon tour to Lake Bled (which was the reason I had actually ventured to Slovenia, although ultimately I was really happy I’d spent so much time in the capital).
For the morning, I meandered through town, seemingly running in to exciting happenings around every corner. In the main square in front of the national cathedral, the European Union Chess Championships were taking place; in place of the food festival near the central market, a Croatia tourism performance was happening; a quartet was playing on the central of the three bridges; there appeared to be a marathon / fun-run of some kind sponsored by Toyota happening across the town.
I meandered my way towards lunch, which I ultimately decided to have at Slovenska Hiša.
There are a couple locations throughout town (from what I noticed wandering around), but their mission is to “prove that Slovenia is good enough” by showcasing their incredible DOP-equivalent (i.e., protected origin as classified by the EU) products. I opted to try a local hard-cheese with pickles and a traditional Slovenian flat-bread “sandwich” with chicken and mustard. Both were not surprisingly delicious, solidifying my already firm belief that Slovenia was beyond “good enough” both in terms of food and local production.
In the afternoon, I participated in a half-day tour to Lake Bled, which was the entire reason I had decided to trek to Slovenia in the first place. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I actually was incredibly underwhelmed and found Ljubljana to be much more enriching; I don’t know if this was because of the guide (although the rest of my group had apparently been together for ~7 hours before they picked me up, so maybe I didn’t get the best of them), the rest of the travelers (Americans, who tried to “mansplain” my favorite restaurant in the Bay Area to me immediately, which I both didn’t realize was a thing that could happen and was an automatic turn-off), or the nonplussed workers at the lake itself (who, to be fair, see a ton of extremely bored tourists all day and who do a relatively manual, menial job for a pittance).
I was highly amused to notice the restrictions on the tourist van, though.
That being said, it was worth it, if only to check it off the bucket list. Bled is a tiny town on the borders of the eponymous lake, apparently founded when a Swiss national visited for what was then a “travel” but became the start of “vacations”. They created a very strict “health spa” and others quickly realized that visiting was good business, so a tourist infrastructure to support the visitor population popped up. The actual town is about a ~40 minute drive from Ljubljana, passing a couple sites of interest on the way, including the Ljubljana mosque (a new addition to the town, sponsored by the government of Qatar), a couple new apartment buildings (one in the color of ‘diarrhea’ as our guide put it, although the private investor is a leader in the banana importing business, hence the color choice); the old “rock” church (apparently many of Ljubljana’s oldest churches were wood and burned down before the baroque period).
We hit a little bit of traffic near Bled (after passing the Austria border, which is only about ~10 minutes of drive time away from this part of northwestern Slovenia), and then arrived for our first stop: the famous church on the lake. To get there, we were scheduled for the traditional Pletna boat ride, which was an interesting experience. Essentially, a very strong man oars the group across the lake.
The church itself is pretty nondescript and unfortunately from the water is a little underwhelming as the island (the only island in Slovenia!) is so close to the land that you can’t really tell it’s isolated from water-level. That being said, it’s beautiful. Upon docking at the island, there are 99 steps to get up to the church – as legend goes, if you get married at the church, the husband is supposed to carry you up the stairs (our driver joked, “that’s how you know they’re the right one!”).
Most folks (perhaps at the guidance of our guide, who said it wasn’t worth it which felt like a real disservice) opted not to get the 12 Euro ticket to actually enter the church, ring the bell, or see the museum (or use the toilet at the coffee shop!). I did anyway, and had pretty much all the attractions to myself despite the many, many tourists on the island (our group was about 8, but there were at least 5 other groups on site at the same time). I visited the church and rang the bell (which was harder than it looks, you have to pull in the right direction firmly three times), visited the tower (and contorted myself to get some good pictures) and saw the cute little museum. Oh, and visited the toilet.
After our time on the island itself elapsed, we headed to the Bled Castle, which offered a lovely viewpoint. Oddly, the castle itself was also kind of underwhelming. I think my impression of both sites was that they felt like a shell of their historical selves – still maintained, but very much not authentic anymore. Truly tourist infrastructure at this point.
The castle did have a couple items of interest. First was a wedding party that was wrapping up; picture British folks in their finest hobbling down an extremely steep hill in heels, hair pieces askew. Then, the castle boasts a printing museum – they have a replica Gutenberg printing press and a variety of items related to the spread of literacy in Slovenia and the reformation more broadly. We discovered the reason for the terms “upper” and “lower” case letters – quite literally, that’s where the lead stamp used for printing was stored. Upper or lower in the storage “case”. Amazing.
The castle also boasts a lovely well, a chapel, a winery and good views.
Of course, the views are what people really write home about.
One interesting item was the Bled cake, Kremna rezina, which according to our guide quite literally means “slice of cream” based on the German it was likely influenced by. It was truly delicious – it’s a bit of a crispy topping, then a whipped cream, with a custard underneath. I was extremely impressed. I also tried the local pear liqueur, which was yummy.
After that, we headed back to Ljubljana and frankly I just relaxed at the hotel and headed back into town for a casual dinner. This morning when I left for the airport, my taxi driver was a dynamic guy who offers tours and I wish I’d taken the tour with him (please reach out if you’d like his details!). He was cracking all sorts of jokes but also told me way more information than I’d learned previously despite a clearer lack of English proficiency – my favorite joke he made was when he was living under Yugoslavia, he learned German when he lived near the Austrian border, Italian when he lived near the Italian border, and after two beers… he just speaks Chinese! Overall, would absolutely recommend Slovenia to anyone looking to get away; I think if I had to do it again, I would have done the “medieval” villages tour and visit Maribor, the second largest town. That being said, Bled was on my bucket list for years and I’m very happy I made the effort to visit.