Backpacking through Europe with Eurail – Lake Bled, Slovenia

You shouldn’t be allowed to have a buffet breakfast unless you know how to properly overindulge and in backpacker terms that means eat enough to cover both breakfast and lunch so you only have to buy dinner. So we made sure we did this good and proper on our last morning in Salzburg (even 2 pieces of chocolate cake each, go us!) before heading to the train station yet again.

I think the journey from Salzburg to Lesce-Bled was one of my favourites even despite the few problems the train had. Austria just seemed to get more and more beautiful the further we traveled. The mountains seemed to get bigger and bigger, the streams and rivers became crystal clear that even from the train we could see the rocks on the bottom and the houses got fewer and far between.

Our welcome into Slovenia was rather interesting since at the first stop – Jesenice – the train fully stopped and the only English we got out of the train guy was ‘stop till 3pm’ which was over an hour away. So after some further investigation with other passengers who spoke English we found out that there was maintenance being done on the lines. So of course there was no better way to pass some time than head over to the station shop and buy a couple of 500ml Lasko beers and potato chips.

We finally got going at 3:15pm, and by the way we were getting off at the next stop only 10 minutes up the tracks! Bled town was about 4kms from the station, so we jumped on a local bus after about 20minutes. We meet a German couple while we were waiting who had come down for a week to camp and hike up one of the mountains… our memories of rainy Munich in a tent made us not one bit jealous of them!

Our hostel/guesthouse was super easy to find in Bled, and only about 150 meters from the lake – Marija Lesnik. Marjia was super friendly, a lovely old Slovenian lady who cheerfully showed us our room and supplied us with a glass of cola and intensely sweet, alcoholic liquor as a welcome drink. For 35 Euro a night we hit the jackpot, we had an awesome huge room, which even had views of the castle, which overlooks the beautiful Lake Bled.

We got ourselves together fairly quickly so we could make it to a supermarket before they closed since it was a Saturday. We stocked up on enough food to last our 2-night stay in Bled, which actually turned out to be way to much as about 5 minutes after we reached home I came down with a terrible fever and stomach pains. It wasn’t very pleasant and I am still trying to recover.

However I challenged this evilness that had come over me and the next day, after a trip to the pharmacy for a s*** load of pills I managed to walk the full 6km’s around the beautiful Lake Bled. Ok it did take about 4 hours as I had to keep sitting or lying by the lake, but I am so glad I pushed through the pain and made it, as it was absolutely stunning.

The water was so clear, you were able to see the ground as well as a ton of fish and we even saw a small turtle! The lake is surrounded by the beautiful Julian Alps, so you really feel like you are in a secluded little paradise. There is an island in the middle of the lake where a lovely little church sits. Supposedly rumor has it that if you get married there it is tradition for the groom to carry the bride up the stairs while she remains silent. Now this may not seem that bad but there are A LOT of stairs (99 to be exact!) and we heard that a guy actually has to train to be able to do this…!! Now that’s love.

Unfortunately that was about all we got up to in Bled, it was stunning and it is on our revisit list. Especially since we found out that you can dive in it and there is also Lake Bohinj nearby that is even more stunning than Lake Bled and it has some shipwrecks in the bottom apparently. Actually we are kind of wishing we had more time for Slovenia as from what we have seen and done it has been awesome, the food, wine, beer is great and more importantly the people are so friendly and helpful.

But we must continue on… On a warm summer’s evening, on a train bound for…