Visiting Slovenia 2024: Lake Bled

Hello everyone and i hope you are well. Merry Christmas and Happy holidays to you all! This is the first time i write a travel-related post under the new leadership of @worldmappin and i am quite excited that they took over the project as it is one of the successful communities on Hive.

Now if you don't know me i like travelling a lot. The plan is to travel to another country once per year and stay there for 4-5 days in order to explore it. This year and actually around 10 days ago i decided to visit Slovenia.

How to get to Slovenia and Lake Bled from Greece

Living in Greece Slovenia is not that far but for some reason, our let's say national airport company had direct flights until the end of October. Thus we had 3 options with stops. We decided to go with Lufthansa through Munich and Frankfurt on the way back.

It was my first time flying with Lufthansa. Overall, it was a pretty decent trip and company i have nothing negative to say to be honest. The first flight was around 2:30 hours and the second was around 40-50 minutes. on each flight and probably due to the flights being under 3 hours, we received a small chocolate and a 300 ml bottle of water. The water was quite a nice edition, as i was used to small kinds of cups so far!

When we arrived at their national airport or "Ljubljana Jože Pučnik International Airport" if you like difficult pronunciations you realize that it is quite small and convenient. Pretty much you get out and across the street, you can find the bus station.

Now we use the bus, we didn't rent a car so this let's say the guide is intended for people that will try it this way and to tell you the truth i suggest it as it's cheaper than renting a car. So there are 2-3 main bus companies in Slovenia. You don't need to book any tickets online especially in December as it's off-season so not too many tourists.

Simply we have seen the timetables back in Greece, we did a double check in Slovenia as well and we basically took the first bus that came. When you get on the bus you let the driver know where you go and you pay with cash not card. We did a 10-minute ride to a town nearby and then we took another bus straight to Bled which took around 30 minutes.

For some good reason on weekends, you pay less. This is supposed to be in order to make people travel during the weekends. So we basically paid around 2 euros each from the airport to Lake Bled which is literally nothing if you ask me!

History of Lake Bled

Now it's time for a history lesson. Lake Bled is a place that has traces of humans from back to Stone Age but there are more finds in the Iron Age due to the Alpine regions being full of iron. Ofc Celts and Romans went there as well but the latest ones which still inhabit the area are Slavs. There is also a castle there on a hill that in general had a lot of back and forth between Germans, Protestants and Austrians until Slovenia had their elected government which also took the castle.

Also, note that Bled Castle is considered to be the oldest castle in Slovenia and ofc the one with the most tourists. Around Lake Bled you will also see a lot of different let's say small villages that started as small settlements and grew as the years passed by. Now most of them are focused on tourist activities and agriculture.

Where we Stayed and Ate

Now because i really enjoy searching where to stay and eat as i don't want to waste my money and also want to have value for money experiences that i will remember i did my fair share of digging and ended up booking the Old Parish house for a night. Note that the plan was to stay in Lake Bled for a day as the next day we would move to the capital of Slovenia for 3-4 nights.

The old parish house is an excellent choice for many reasons. First and foremost as you can see on the map below (sorry for the Greek but you get the full idea), it's literally a 5-minute walk from where the bus leaves you and where you will once again go to take the bus for Ljubljana, the airport or even another country.

Also, as you can see the lake is a 1-2 minute walk from the hotel and the path leading to the castle was also next to the hotel. It was like 10-15 minutes walk from the Hotel to the castle on foot. Thus the hotel was the perfect choice for us.

Now the hotel is actually an old parish house as the name suggests, one of the oldest buildings in Bled with over 200 years of history. In case you have a car there is also free parking. The room was quite spacious, the bathroom amazing, we had a nice of the lake and the church of St Martin's which was next to the hotel. Note that if you wake up late you might think it again as you will hear the bells.

We also had a free welcome drink and arranged breakfast for the next day which was amazing. There were not so many options like a buffet with countless things but for me, it was one of the greatest breakfasts due to everything being extremely fresh.

If you now check the map again you will see a Pizzeria 2 minutes from our hotel. Add 1 minute more and you will also find a pastry shop where we tried the renowned Bled Cake along with 2-3 other local ones. To tell you the truth i only like the Bled cake and i would actually give it a 6/10 as i wanted more flavor. The pizzeria though was freaking amazing, it was the best pizza i have eaten and everyone said the same as well, and we have been to Italy guys :P

What to do in Lake Bled in December

Now in December, there are not a lot of things you can actually do on Lake Bled. There are options to go on the nearby mountains for snowboarding and such but now let's focus on Lake Bled. Also take into account that in December nighttime comes early, like 16:00 or something and besides darkness, it also means a lot of freaking cold.

So what you can do though, is visit Castle Bled like we did which was interesting. If you haven't visited other castles you will love it, if you have then you will stick with the interesting part. It also has a great view and a small cafe where you can sit there for a while and admire the scenery if you can put up with the cold. The ticket for the castle was around 17-19 euros if i remember correctly.

You can also pay for a boat ride to a small island in the center of Lake Bled if the weather permits is ofc. I talked with some locals and read some reviews though and i don't know whether it is worth it. You pay for the boat ride and you have 1 hour on the small island which has a small like church and another building. You can either take some photos and enjoy the scenery or pay extra like the same you paid for the castle to get on the church.

Finally, you can walk around the Lake which is quite cool and it will take you around 1-2 hours for a circle depending on how fast you walk or if you stop to take photos. Ofc as i mentioned above you will definitely visit one of the cafes or restaurants and trust you can find some amazing ones!

I hope that you liked my post, there will be at least 2-3 parts about the capital of Slovenia and a day trip that i did so stay tuned. In case you are thinking of visiting ask me anything! Below you can find older travelling posts of mine for Jordan

All the photos have been taken by me and i reserve the rights