Bled Castle is an important cultural monument in Slovenia, perched on a cliff, 300 feet above the Lake. View image It was first mentioned in 1011 and now houses a restaurant and museum. We just enjoyed the view from the bottom of Bled Lake and relaxed by taking the path around the Lake. The footpath measures about a 7 km and, since it was a weekend, there were many families roller blading, biking, feeding the ducks, swimming and tanning, enjoying the beautiful day..
The other Bled landmark is The Church of The Assumption on the middle of the Island. There is a legend that a temple of the Slavic goddess, Ziva, stood on this island. It disappeared during battles between pagans and Christians who destroyed the pagan temple, and built a church. Archaeologists have discovered traces of prehistoric and Slavic settlements, dating from 11th B.C The bell tower has been renovated several times due to damage by earthquakes.

another view of The Church
The only way to visit the island is by local boats called a “Pletna.” The boatman waits until his individual boat fills with tourists, boats out to the Island, gives you time to tour, and brings you back.

Pletnas to tour Lake Bled, Slovenia
Helia drove us to Zavrsnica the next day to hike up to Valvasorjev Dom. At the start of the hike, a mountain bike race was just getting started – heading to the destination we were – but they were biking the 5km UPHILL. A very nice Slovenian, Stan, started us off hiking by showing the way to the blazed trail. View image

When we reached the top about 1:45 later, the bikers were still coming across the finish line. “Ex-Marine” got all excited and traded his T-shirt for a Zavrsnica 2006 T-shirt with a race organizer. If you ever see a Plano, TX Basketball Championship T-Shirt while visiting Slovenia, it came from us!

Hiking down to the bottom, we saw Stan coming down the mountain. Stan (wanted to practice his English on us) related that he was 80-years old, and his wife was 70. They hike every weekend in the mountains. Living to age 80 sounds wonderful to me, let alone having the physical ability to hike!

It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow and we have a long walk to Bohinj…..get out the rain pants!