Absolutely Bled-y Bewdiful!

I couldn’t have pointed Slovenia out to you on a map a few months ago, but it turns out it’s a cracker of a country and a belter of a place to visit. After tasting the delicious nectar that is Ljubljana, I’ve move on to the stunning Lake Bled, which is an hour’s bus ride from the capital and one of the prettiest places I’ve ever visited.

The Lake looks like something out of a dream, with crystal clear water giving way to steep, emerald green mountains that reach towards the sky. A castle like something out of a storybook stands guard above everything, while a tiny island complete with an ancient church seems to float on the surface of the lake. It’s all fucking lovely, really, and there’s not a patch of earth that doesn’t provide something to marvel at.

I arrived yesterday arvo and spent the evening sinking piss and watching a ripper of a sunset, and woke up this morning with a touch of a hangover. That wasn’t going to stop me from checking out Bled’s beauty, though, and after stuffing my face at the hotel breakfast bar, I rolled out the door and went walking.

It’s about six kilometres around the lake, which can be covered in an hour at a normal pace. But if you want to stop every time you see something pretty that needs a camera pointed at it, the journey will probably take something like six hours. That’s fine, though, because every moment spent in this place is a joy.

A worthwhile detour at the western end of the lake winds up Mount Osojnica, providing stunning views out over the water. It’s from here that you will get the best views of the lake, the ones that are splashed across postcards. There’s a short track from the edge of the lake to the peak that takes maybe 10 minutes to walk, but I headed out on a longer loop that was steep and challenging, but totally worth it.

The view kept getting better as I got higher (that wasn’t a drug reference), and once at the top I struggled to believe that what I was seeing was real. It’s a strange land that really needs to be seen first-hand to be truly appreciated. The lookout at the top of of Osojnica is at 611m and, while I wasn’t up there at night, everybody who ventured along this rough trail saw a full moon over the lake.

It can get a bit busy at the prettier vantage points, and while trying to enjoy the serenity I had to put up with a smiling Asian dude who wanted me to take a photo of him with a pine cone and a bunch of Pommy dipshits who rocked up with some sort of techno shit blaring from a cheap speaker (they were given the option of turning it off or watching their speaker descend from the top of the mountain at a rapid rate, and chose the former), but it’s still just bloody good.

Of course, if you’re a fat cunt, don’t have any legs, or have spent the night before drinking metho and have a hangover that could kill a brown dog, there’s a stupid little train thing that runs around the lake. It’s full of dickheads, though, and is a crap way to see the lake, so don’t bother with it.

Get out to Lake Bled, it’s a champion place and unless you’re a complete mong you’ll love it. It’s a top place to walk around, there are lots of attractive women, and you can’t point you camera at something without feeling like the second coming of Ken Duncan. I might even go for a skinny dip in the lake tomorrow!