Bled

2017-04-14

We got a train from Ljubljana to Lesce-Bled to a cool hostel that used to be a monastery.

We got a bus to Bled itself and hiked up to the castle that overlooks the lake.

We were going to hire a boat but it started to rain, so we had lunch and waited a bit for it to clear. One thing we weren't expecting were the huge snow-covered alpine mountains in the background. Also that lots of things would be closed, one gorge we wanted to visit unfortunately didn't open until a week later.

The sun came out for a bit, so we looked at renting a boat again, but only one place was open and they recommended against it in case it rained again. The tourist information centre recommended hiking up Osojnica, which was a bit steeper then we were epecting but had great panoramic views of the lake.

The next day we went canyoning, which had been recommended to us and was the main reason we came to Bled. The water was pretty cold, and we only got wetsuits this time (not drysuits) but it was incredibly fun. Rachael did better then I was expecting and only really struggled with the first jump. Because it was very early in the tourist season it was just us and the guide. The water was also full of salamanders.

In the afternoon we went back to Bled to get a boat this time and row to island. It was fun being on the water, but the island itself wasn't too exciting.

We still had one day free and with the gorge closed, we decided to go on a hot air balloon ride. We had to get up really early, then set a helium balloon off to work out the launch site. Again, it ended up being a private ride as it was early in the season.

Our pilot was Slovenian but had just come back from Melbourne, where he works part of the year as his daughter lives there now. So he'd actually left Australia after us. He was a really interesting guy and runs the company with his wife.

After the ride we had some champagne to celebrate the successful flight (and Rachael got quite drunk). And then we headed back to Lake Bled for some Bled Cake, which is basically an amazing vanilla slice.

We then spent most of the rest of the day relaxing and planning where we were going next (finding accommodation and transport over Easter late notice proved quite difficult).

While waiting for our train to Austria the next day, we saw a train go past with carriage after carriage of brand new Mercedes.