Ljubljana & Lake Bled

Slovenia — October 2019

My 1-week trip to Croatia and Slovenia in late autumn 2019 is short and could have been timed better. But after 4 months in Switzerland, I am desperate to escape the familiar surroundings. So off I am on a night bus to Zagreb. After a detour to the coast, I return to Switzerland via Ljubljana. Since the city is small, and I arrive in the morning, I only book 1 night at a downtown hostel and a night bus to Zurich leaving the following day. But during 36 hours in the Slovenian capital, one can see most of its sights (incl. Lake Bled).

The long-distance bus station is located pretty centrally, so I walk to my accommodation through empty streets. I expected shops to be closed on 1 November, but today is only 31 October. When I ask the front office staff of my hostel about it, they explain that in Slovenia, 31 October is a public holiday to commemorate Reformation Day. This shouldn‘t have a big impact on my sightseeing, though. So I find a nice café for breakfast in the old town and then head up to the castle hill. While listening to the audiobook version of “Crazy Rich Asians”, I explore the ruins and the surrounding park.

It’s cloudy and I take the weather as an excuse to spend the afternoon strolling around the cobblestoned streets lined with stationery shops selling pretty artwork. Once I‘ve seen them all, I head back to the riverside, where in the meantime several restaurants, beer gardens, and bars have opened their terraces, despite the chilly autumn air. Since the center of the old town is quite touristic, the prices on the menus are high everywhere. So I decide to follow my taste buds and indulge in delicious Ramen at the Panasian fusion restaurant.

It‘s still early on this Halloween evening. However, compared to many other European cities, there are no people wearing costumes heading to a fancy dress party. Since I plan to get up early the next day anyway for a day trip to Lake Bled, I return to my hostel and sit down in the common area to check the bus schedule. Just when I conclude my planning, a young man dressed in an extravagant fake fur jacket enters the building. It takes a moment for me to recognize Alessio, the Italian guy I‘ve already met in my dorm a few hours ago.

He‘s equally surprised about the lack of nightlife in the city and brought a bottle of Prosecco at least bring the party to the hostel. We share a few drinks and soon realize, that there are not too many other guests staying here tonight. So, with the now half-empty bottle in hand, we go for a walk around the town. While we tour the empty streets, Alessio decides to join my day trip to Lake Bled the next day. He will also return home by night bus in the evening. We finally go to bed past midnight after talking for hours, and I‘m wondering if we will really make it to the bus stop in time to buy the ticket at 7am.

But we do! Fortunately, the hostel is not too far from the station, but we still need to run the last 100 meters. Out of breath we buy the tickets at the designated window before joining the long queue of people entering the tour bus. It soon becomes clear, that there will not be any seats left for us, but fortunately, we are allowed to sit on the stairs for the 1 hour ride. We try to catch up on some sleep, but the curvy road doesn‘t allow it. So once we arrive in the small village of Bled, we look for a coffee and sugar fix to kick-start the explorer spirit. We find all we could hope for and more at a traditional bakery, run by a Slovenian grandmother.

We spend way more time there than all the local day trippers. Fully stuffed and with no clear plan in mind apart from trying to see the lake, we then head towards the close by castle. The uphill walk would definitely have been a battle without the sugar boost. The castle is nothing special, but the view of the lake is quite nice indeed. After snapping a few pictures, we finally want to see the famous small island in the middle of the lake up close. This means, that we somehow have to find a way down a couple of hundreds of meters through the forest. Following the rough direction of a path on Google Maps, we stroll through the park and soon leave the crowds behind.

Once we see wooden stairs leading down into the forest, we decide to wing it. The first part is in quite good shape, but after a few curves, the logs placed on the hill disappear. Now it‘s just our sneakers against the wet foliage on the forest floor. Both of us, but especially Alessio‘s fur coat, look very out of place. This doesn‘t keep us from having the best time while descending to the lake. Arriving at the flat walking course, we seamlessly blend in with the other sightseeing tourists strolling along. We make our way west towards the far end of the lake, stopping for pictures here and there, and exchanging funny travel stories.

At Restavracija Zaka Camping Bled we treat ourselves to lunch before continuing on to the bus stop across the lake from the castle. From here there is supposedly a bus leaving for Ljubljana sometime soon. However, there is no way of confirming this information, so we have no other choice than to wait. At least, we still have a view of the small island and its church. About 30 minutes later, the same tour bus which dropped us in the village a few hours ago turns up. This time it‘s completely empty and as soon as we pull up to the crowd at the place where we got off, we are very happy with our decision to risk waiting at the unfamiliar spot.

With actual seats, the bumpy ride is much more enjoyable and simply flies by. Once we arrive at the Ljubljana Station, I just have a short layover, during which I pick up my bag and then head back to the Flixbus Station. My vacation is over, and I have to return to Luzern to be on time for my 8am class the next day. This bus ride is much more pleasant as well, with an empty seat next to me and only 2 brief stops at the Slovenian/Austrian and Austrian/Swiss borders.