Lake Bled, Slovenia

From Ljubliana I continued to Bled, also in Slovenia. Bled is a town on the aptly named Lake Bled and is a quaint little town with lots of tourists (both foreign and Slovenian). Think a scaled-down version of Clear Lake, except there is a church on an island in the middle of the lake and a castle on a hill. From here I took a day trip that included hiking in the Julian Alps and rafting down the Soca River. The mountains were beautiful although it took 50 hairpin turns to get up and down from the pass we hiked.

You could see where one of the major front lines of WW1 was. Slovenia was part of the Austro-Hungary Empire. When Italy joined the war, the front line (mostly defended by Germany) wove its way through the Julian Alps, some pretty intense terrain. Germany built a cable car from the mountains down into valley towns to get supplies up. We could see the remnants of this while walking, as well as some old bunkers. After driving back down into the valley we walked along the Soca River and some of its tributaries. This river is very clear, blue, and cold (about 8 degrees)! It was on this river that we went rafting, timed perfectly with the start of a thunderstorm. Nothing better than being on water with a metal paddle with lightening on the horizon. It was a lot of fun. Not too crazy, but almost fell out once. Definitely got drenched and was glad I had a wetsuit!

My last day in Bled, I did some hiking around the lake and to a nearby gorge. I went up to a viewpoint that gave me this postcard perfect view of Lake Bled.