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	Lake Bled	Penzion Mayer, Bled	Penzion Mayer, Bled
	Room, Penzion Mayer	Room, Penzion Mayer	View of lake and castle from Room
	Lake Bled	Lake Bled	Lake Bled
	Lake Bled	Beautiful house on outskirts of Bled	Beautiful houses on outskirts of Bled
	Vintgar Gorge	Vintgar Gorge	Pizzeria Rikli

Things to see and do in Bled

 

An absolutely must-do is take a boat over to the island on the lake. It's lovely to be on the lake and the views are amazing. We took one of the 'pletnas' or rowing boats that row groups of around a dozen over to the island (you may have to wait till the boat is full). It cost €10 each. You are allowed about 1/2 an hour on the island which is quite long enough to have a look in the church, ring the bell (for good luck) and take some photos. You can also rent rowing boats and row yourself out there.

We'd recommend hiring bikes (around €11 per day for a good quality mountain bike - or less if you don't need it for a whole day) and exploring the area. The centre of Bled is the only place you'll encounter much traffic but drivers in Slovenia are used to cyclists and the traffic is generally quite slow. If you just want a gentle cycle ride, you can ride round the lake (about 5 miles) as there's a path the whole way round. If you're looking for more of a work-out, you can cycle to Vintgar Gorge. On a hot day the uphill journey there is hard work, although it's not a long journey. The mostly downhill journey back to Bled is much easier though! It's a very scenic journey though, through some really cute little villages, past some lovely alpine type houses with flowers everywhere.

 

Vintgar Gorge, about 4km north-west of Bled is a popular tourist attraction. It's a spectacular 1.6 km gorge with a wooden walkway the whole way round which leads you over bridges, and through waterfalls, pools and rapids, ending with a bridge overlooking the Šum waterfall. Due to its natural beauty, Vintgar has been classified among the more important tourist sights in Slovenia and the number of visitors increases every year.

Bled Castle is worth a visit for some spectacular views over the city. It's quite a climb up there (we found it too hard to cycle up and it was even quite hard work to push the bikes up the hill - but great coming back down!!). There's also a bus that goes to the castle from Bled - check with the tourist office for times.

 

If you're not going to be staying in Ljubljana as part of your trip, it's worth going there for the day. Get the bus which runs hourly and takes around 1-1½ hours (it's probably a shorter trip usually, but there were road works when we were there). Every bus we took in Slovenia left bang on time - we were very impressed. It's a very nice city, very walkable or cyclable with lots of nice riverside cafes, a colourful market and a castle. Click here for more information about Ljubljana.

 

There isn't a huge selection of shops in Bled and the ones there aren't great to be honest. There's a jewellery shop, one selling speciality teas, a branch of L'Occitane, a couple of shops selling touristy things - and that's about it. We expected lots of places selling paintings and artwork with it being such a beautiful place, but there was nothing like that. There was a little market just back from the lake off the road leading to the bus station, but there wasn't a great selection of stuff and what there was seemed overpriced.

 

 

Bars and Restaurants in Bled

 

The restaurant at Penzion Mayer is a very popular place. Although we'd booked a table we landed up sitting in the outdoor covered area, right at the back, so we felt it lacked a bit of ambiance. It'd have been nicer either sitting outside or at the front of the covered area. The food, traditional Slovenian fare, was nice, but we found it a bit heavy. For starters, we weren't too keen on the potato dumplings but were glad we'd tried them, and the Vol-au-vents served with ragout (just like beef stew) weren't really our thing. The beef was delicious - incredibly tender with absolutely no fat on it whatsoever. The pork with gnocchi was a bit heavy going. We maybe just chose the wrong dishes because the restaurant was packed and we spoke to an English couple who had eaten there every night and said they'd been told it was by far the best place to eat in Bled.

 

We had a nice lunch at the popular Pizzeria Rikli which is just next to the Park Hotel, opposite the lake and the casino. It's a nice place to sit outside and watch the world go by and the pizzas are very nice and there's a large selection of flavours. They're also huge so one pizza is enough for 2 people, although we had a nice Greek salad with ours. Reasonable prices too.

To be honest, we were a bit disappointed with the poor selection of restaurants in Bled. Perhaps a lot of people stay there on a half board basis and therefore eat at their hotel (there seemed to be a lot of people at Penzion Mayer on a package deal with dinner included). A place that was recommended to us and always seemed busy was the little restaurant next to Pub Bled. We looked at a menu and it was mostly seafood, so we decided to give it a miss, but if you like seafood it's probably worth a try. Another popular place is the cute pub Pri Planincu near the bus station. We just had a drink there, but it has a good reputation for food too.

Bled isn't exactly a lively place as far as nightlife is concerned, but a nice place to go for a drink is the Devil Pub just along from the Park Hotel. With seating inside and out it was one of the busiest places, and had a nice ambiance. There are a few bars next to each other in the shopping centre just up from the casino, but to be honest it's not the most appealing place to sit and have a drink. The centre there is a bit of an eyesore and none of the bars are particularly appealing.

Some useful sites about Bled:

Bled Tourism - Lots of useful information about Ljubljana here including tours, accommodation and maps
Time Out Ljubljana - Lots of stuff about Ljubljana, including shopping, restaurants and bars and tourist information
Hotels in Bled - Book hotels in Bled and earn rewards worth 5% of your booking to use against other reservations.

 

*Note: Information quoted above was accurate in 2007