Day-trip from Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia…
Despite Slovenia’s small size, this country has quite a variety of nature escapes for travelers. Bled and Vintgar Gorge are perfect for the outdoor enthusiast. No idea what to expect? Well, Bled is known for its castle sitting on top of a hill overlooking an island in the middle of a lake. Thanks to the naturopath Arnold Rikli, in the second half of the 19th century, Bled was visited as a health resort by aristocrats from all around the world. Vintgar Gorge runs along the Radovna river with a 1600m wooden trail leading to the highest waterfall in the country.
Ljubljana Bus Station (located in between two streets, right in front of the train station).
The cheapest (and most sensible) way to get from Ljubljana to Bled is by bus. It’s a 1 hour and 15 minutes ride (around 12€ return). Trains make no sense since there is no train station in Bled so you would end up having to finish your journey by bus. Now, don’t go making the same mistake we did by buying the bus tickets at the bus station.
Tip: Save money on the service charge by buying directly from the bus driver. The bus to Bled is on platform 7.
FYI: If you have read other blogs and/or reviews they will advise you to only buy a one way ticket because there is more than one bus company so on your way back you might find yourself having to wait for another bus. Well, we found out that that is no longer the case as the companies have merged so that is no longer an issue. So go ahead and buy yourself a return ticket on discount.
To get to the lake from Bled bus station just head down the hill and you’ll bump into it in a minute. Take a left around the lake until you see the steps to the tourist information center (to your right, after the stores). From there you can get some free maps, cheap souvenirs and you can leave your bags free of charge as well. This office is open Monday to Saturday from 8am to 9pm; Sundays and holidays from 9am to 5pm.
Now, our original plan was to do Bled’s island and castle first, walk half an hour to the hostel, leave the bags there and then keep on walking for half an hour more to Vintgar Gorge. But as any traveler will tell you, plans change! After having a chat with a lovely tourist info lady we shuffled the order of things. Not only did we escape the afternoon rain at the top of the mountain, but we avoided the tourist groups in the gorge who start making an appearance at around 10:20am.
VINTGAR GORGE
The gorge is open to tourists from late April to October. You can make the walk up to VINTGAR GORGE (around 1 hour), but we recommend you take the bus with Alpetour from Bled bus station for only 1.80€.
Tip: You get a 10% discount for buying your return ticket on the spot with the bus driver.
The bus will leave you on a parking lot form which you’ll just need to walk up the steps where you will find the entrance. You can buy your tickets right on the booth (4€ adult; 3€ student). If you make it to the mountain before 10am you pretty much get the place for yourself to take all the pictures your little heart desires without blocking anyone’s path or having random people getting in the way of a magical pic.
The path along the river ends at the Waterfall Šum, the highest waterfall in Slovenia. That day the waterfall was flaunting a very nice looking rainbow… maybe you’ll be lucky to witness it too. You can end your trip to the gorge here, or you can continue your adventure by crossing the waterfall bridge where you can find the bathrooms (they are nice, but not where I’m going with this…) and an extra path up a few off-road stairs to snap a couple more nature pics. Feeling tired already but still want more pictures? You can skip crossing the bridge and instead head towards the exit and down the stairs following the sign that says “Pod Slap” to take pictures of the waterfall from below.
You can go back to Bled the same way you came in or head right from the exit and walk along the forest until you find a road. There is definitely a path, but it splits sometimes into two. We followed our instincts and did alright. If you are not feeling too confident just ask the Vintgar Gorge employees before heading into the wild.
Tip: On nature walks never forget to bring at least one water bottle and some snacks. Downloading an offline map app wouldn’t hurt either. We used CityMaps2Go.
On our walk to Bled we encountered a charming little village. ZASIP VILLAGE is on the sunny hill slopes of Hom. The simple beauty of this village led the Slovenian poet France Prešeren to call Zasip the “altar of Gorenjska”. Bled Castle and the lake are located on Grad Village.
To give you an idea of how long it took us, we took the 8:40am bus from Bled to Vintgar Gorge. By 10:20am we had finished the Vintgar Gorge path to later take the two extra paths mentioned above before making our way to Bled. By 12:15pm we were already eating in Tiger, a Kebab Restaurant in front of the Bled bus station. No rush, just enjoying nature.
BLED
Once you make it into Grad Village you have several activities to choose from. You have one FREE TOUR every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6pm with Niko. With him you will learn about things like what pletna is and what fairies were doing on the island! We didn’t get a chance to do this tour since we didn’t know he only gave the tour three days a week (his website is not available in English), but Niko has some very good reviews on tripadvisor and the lady in the information desk recommended him as well.
From the lake there are different small paths you can climb up to BLED CASTLE. Some will bring you to the castle’s main entrance. Others will lead you underneath the castle where you can skip paying the entrance fee (10€ adult; 7€ student) and still get the same view you would get from inside the castle. Another way to skip the entrance fee would be to make a reservation at the Castle Restaurant (click here to see the menus).
If you are in Bled over the summer on a Tuesday or Thursday you get to enjoy a MEDIEVAL PROGRAM with your entrance fee so the value for your money goes considerably up. {Click here for a 17 second glimpse of what this program is all about.}
Bled Castle, founded in 1004, from the lake at night.
Want to go to BLED ISLAND? For the cheapest and shortest tram go to Rowing Finish Tower on Zaka Harbour, right next to Camping Bled. For 10€ the hour (15€ for a family sized one) you get to rent a rowing boat and do the trip yourself. It only takes around 10 minutes (15min if you are as bad as my partner!) to get to the island so one hour will be more than enough time.
The alternative is to go by PLETNA BOAT where you will be taken to the island the traditional way along with other tourists, get to stay on the island for about half an hour (which is plenty of time) and pay 14€ per person. Your choice if you want to splurge there or not. On our case we were 2 people so it was a choice between paying 10€ or 28€ total. Not only did we save 18€ there, but we really enjoyed taking turns to row the boat.
Once you get to Bled Island you can sunbathe, enjoy a walk around it or pay the 6€ (4€ student/senior) fee to visit the inside of the church, ring the wishing bell and climb up the 90 steps of the Bell Tower.
Feel like shooting something? On the camping grounds you get to practice some MEDIEVAL ARCHERY from 5€ for 5 shots with crossbow or 10 shots with a bow. Camping Bled also has a rocky beach for those who want to enjoy a SWIM ON THE LAKE (not during winter though as the lake freezes over). I didn’t mention this before, but if you are a strong swimmer you can make your way from this spot to the island and skip having to rent a boat. I saw some people doing it, but that’s just not the kind of nature adventure I like.
Had we had more time I would have preferred to join one of the OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES in the area. You can experience white water rafting, canyoning, tandem paragliding and more!
Now, before you leave this magical village you have to try the CREAM CAKE as it is the symbol of Bled! In the 1940s Ištvan Lukačevič, the former manager of the Hotel Park patisserie, experimented with an old Vojvodina recipe. After years of testing different recipes he finally succeeded with his now famous blejska kremšnita. Bar 2000 had a takeaway special of 2 cream cakes for 4€ when we where there.
These two destinations are definitely a good choice for those who want to escape the noise of the big cities and breath some fresh air. If you have any questions you can contact me and I’ll try my very best to reply soon. Also, leave a comment below if you enjoyed my blog post or if you have anything else to add for others to benefit from.
Happy budget escape everyone!
.:Budget Escapes:. 