Lake Bled

By Hannah

27.06.2013 - 27.06.2013 14 °C
View Koning/Zemliak Family Europe 2012/2013 on KZFamily's travel map.

Lake Bled with island church

We delved into Slovenia's natural landscape today. After exploring the urban Ljubljana (I'm still struggling to wrap my tongue around that name) yesterday, it was nice to get a feel for the Slovenian outdoors.

Lake Bled is gorgeous, and has a perfect little island in the middle of it. An idyllic church and bell tower reside there, tolling every half hour. The lake is home to numerous ducks and swans, none of which were very shy. The last of this year's cygnets and ducklings were paddling about behind their mothers. The baby swans are nearly as big as the fully grown ducks, and they know it, too. We took a stroll around the lake's perimeter, and enjoyed the cool temperature, thinking back to our sweltering week in Italy and appreciating the overcast skies even more. Everything looked green and lush and alive. We drew out the walk significantly with all the time we spent taking pictures. Afterwards, we had a picnic lunch at the lakeside, and watched some fishermen cast their lines into the fish-laden waters.

We made a brief stop at Lake Bohinj, another beautiful mountainside lake just twenty minutes from Lake Bled. We popped our heads into a small chapel named for the patron saint of travellers, St. Christopher. People believed that if you saw an image of St. Christopher, you will not die on that day. I feel like they missed a chance to try for immortality. The paintings inside were unusually grotesque and creepy, but aside from that the church was quaint and traditional.

It look us less than an hour to go from forests and lakes to the centre of town. I'm still getting used to how small Slovenia is.

Posted by KZFamily 13:57 Archived in Slovenia Tagged lake slovenia bled

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Comments

Thank you, Hannah, for your beautiful description of the happy ducks, swans and their babies. I can just imagine how you must have enjoyed your peaceful and cool stroll around the gorgeous lake.
Also at Durrance Lake, the geese are proud to show off their cute offspring.
Wishing you continued joy on your travels.

by Edith Roslee

Dear Family.
Thank you for the last few blogs. It is amazing how much you have seen and experienced already and how much there is to see yet. Some people say the world is getting smaller. Well you have shown that is really not the case. You have taken us away from the beaten path and you have shown us so much what we other wise never would know and see. You have been able to keep the blogs very interesting and yet so down to earth. When I see all these old buildings in these old cities I often wonder, do people live in these buildings and what do they do for a living? I know I have many questions and I hope that we can have some good conversations when you come back. I hope my old mind can keep up with you until you come back.
With love, Opa.

by G Koning

The island in the centre of Lake Bled (imaginatively called Bled Island) is the only natural island in Slovenia. I wonder if that means there are some man-made islands somewhere else in the country. Sometimes wikipedia isn't that useful.

by Jane1

Answer to Jane1 - yes there are man made islands in Slovenia, of course if it's correct to say that you can have islands on a river. There's Otocec castle (the name means "Little island", by the way), and a small town of Kostanjevica. Both are on the Krka river. I could also argue that the old center of Ljubljana is in fact an island, since the river Ljubljanica is regulated in such fashion that it encircles the town.

by Janez

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