Saying Goodbye to our Balkan Summer - Slovenia
Slovenia was the first time we entered back into the Schengan Area after 2 months, and it was the last Balkan country we were planning to visit on our trip. Our time in the Balkans was really great, and we were excited finish up this part in Slovenia. We spent only 3 days in Slovenia last year, so this time we wanted to stay a little longer and enjoy some of Slovenia’s picturesque places.
We spent our week between two places – the city of Novo Mesto and the small tourist town of Bled.
Novo Mesto
Novo Mesto is a small Slovenian city, close to the border of Croatia. It is a beautiful city, especially because the Krka River curves through it. We only had two days in this city, which was enough time to walk through town and explore some of the gorgeous buildings and riverside.
Although we saw quite a bit on our strolls through town, our three favourite things to do here were:
1. Enjoy a tea at Cajarna Stari Most. We were quite surprised to find a teahouse in Novo Mesto, and it ended up being one of our favourite places here! We visited twice while in town, and both times we loved our experience. It’s a hipster teahouse with many delicious teas and coffees to choose from. They also offer sandwiches, which were quite tasty as well.
2. Walk along the River Krka at sunset. Our Airbnb was just up the hill from the river, so we ventured down around sunset to capture a few pictures of the town. The city is very photogenic, especially with the calm water and old architecture. We spent close to an hour taking pictures and walking along the riverside. The pathway is beautiful and the fall colours were really starting to come out which made it gorgeous.
3. Have a delicious doughnut at Pekarna Kandija. We accidently found this bakery while looking for a loaf of bread. While in the bakery these amazingly cheap doughnuts tempted us, so we grabbed a couple to enjoy on our walk. There were two kinds – apricot jam filled and nutella filled. Both were very good, but our favourite was definitely the apricot.
Although our time in Novo Mesto was short, we felt like two days was enough time to see the local sights. There are some thermal baths nearby which we didn’t visit, but if we stayed another day we likely would have ventured outside of town to do a day trip.
Bled
We really love Bled. It’s an adorable tourist town known for Lake Bled, which has a small island and a church. There is also Bled Castle, which sits on the side of a cliff, overlooking the lake. It’s very picturesque and during the off-season the town is actually a little quiet with not many visitors. We chose to spend 4 days here, as we really wanted to enjoy the town, take some great pictures of the lake and castle, go for a few scenic walks, and explore the nearby Julian Alps.
Our favourite places to photograph Lake Bled
When we looked back at our time in Bled, we realized we woke up early – before 5:30 am – every day we were there. The early mornings were definitely worth it to walk around the calm lake before the other tourists, and to explore some lesser-known viewpoints. We spent almost 5 hours walking around the lake, and here are our favourite places to photograph it.
1. For an awesome sunrise: Ojstrica viewpoint. This is quite a popular viewpoint. In fact, when we got to the viewpoint at 6:30 in the morning, there were close to 8 people there already! We went on a Sunday morning, which probably meant more locals or people visiting Bled for the weekend were able to go, but we were in off-season so the crowd surprised us.
To get there, we had to walk about 3.5 km from our Airbnb to the southwest side of the lake. There is a campsite there called Camping Bled. If you look on Maps.Me or Google Maps, you will see the Ojstrica viewpoint just south of Camping Bled. On Maps.Me, there is a great hiking route to follow that will bring you right to the viewpoint. It’s quite a steep hike for about 750 meters and the whole time you are walking on a hiking trail, so bring good shoes! The small hike is worth it, as this is THE place to get the iconic Bled shot.
Even though it as crowded, we found a place to plant ourselves and watch the sunrise. Since there was a bunch of people, it definitely didn’t feel very romantic, but the views were really beautiful. The lake is obviously gorgeous, but we also loved the valley to the right, which was full of fog and stunning sunrise colours.
2. For sunset and an alternative sunrise location: Bled Castle viewpoint. To be fair, we didn’t visit this location at sunset, only sunrise. But we think it would be a great place to visit at night as well. Our Airbnb was only a 10-minute walk to Bled Castle, so on our last day we thought we would check out this viewpoint. If you follow the signs to Bled Castle, you will make your way right to the gates of the castle. Walk to the right of the gates, and you will find yourself at a lookout to the lake. The view here is nice, but you want to get up higher to see the full lake and island. If you keep following the pathway to the right, you will head downhill for about 40 meters, and to the left you will see a hiking trail path heading right up a steep hill. It’s not a far climb, only about 20 meters, but it brings you up high to the same height as the castle. Again, if you look on Maps.Me, you will see it. Do not go to the Free Viewpoint, as this one is blocked off now. Follow the other pathway to the second viewpoint.
This is a great viewpoint, and very similar to the one you see when you pay to enter Bled Castle. Since this is not in the castle gate, it is a free viewpoint and you can go there before the castle opens to watch the sunrise.
Up here you look southwest to the church island. During a sunrise the sun shines nicely on the church and really highlighted the autumn colours of the trees around the lake. We also got a few cool pictures of the side of the castle.
One of the best parts of the viewpoint was that we had the place all to ourselves. No one else was there with us, so we enjoyed our coffees and spent about an hour waking up with the sun.
3. For a close up picture of the church: Along the walking path. On our way back to our Airbnb from the Ojstrica viewpoint, we walked counter clockwise around the lake. There is a great footpath that takes you all around the lake, and most of the time you are walking right along the water. We found the southwest to northeast route (traveling counter-clockwise) to be the most beautiful to photograph a picture of the church.
We definitely recommend an early walk, as the footpath is empty and the tourist boats are not yet travelling to the island. The water is really calm and glassy-like, which allows for beautiful reflections. There are also a bunch of trees near the pathway that we found framed the pictures very well. We walked about 3 km, but it took us over an hour because we stopped so many times!
Must do’s while visiting Bled
Obviously spending some time around the Lake Bled is a must do while visiting the town, but there are three other things we really enjoyed doing while visiting the town – vising Vintgar Gorge, exploring Bled Castle, and tasting some delicious pastries from Slaščičarna Zima.
1. Vintgar Gorge. Next to the lake and the castle, this is likely the most popular tourist destination in Bled. The gorge has become quite popular over the last 5 years, so much so that you can find lines with over 200 people waiting to buy tickets in the summer time! Fortunately we were visiting in mid-September, which is the shoulder season and not as busy. We decided to go in the morning after we did one of our sunrise walks around Bled, so we only go to the gorge around 9:30 am. The gorge opens at 8:00 am, and it is highly recommended that you get there as close to opening as possible to avoid huge crowds, but we didn’t have any issues when we got there.
The walk through the gorge is beautiful. Everything is lush, green, and full of moss. The pathways are all wooden, and quite fun to walk along. They also cross over the water, which makes it feel like you are up close to water the whole time. The pathway is narrow, and most people walk the 1.2 km distance to the end and then turn around, so it does get crowded with two-way traffic. We found the busiest place to be near the train bridge – a popular place for people to stop and take pictures before reaching the end of the pathway.
We looked on the Maps.Me app and a hiking app called AllTrails, and found a hiking trail that created a loop around the gorge. We only walked one way down the gorge, then at the end of the trail we went right and followed a pathway up into the woods. We stayed in the woods for about 2.5 km before we reached the top of the hillside and a little café. From there we followed a sign with a note that said Vintgar Parking. We walked along the hill with a view of the town behind Bled the whole way back, about another 2.5 km, to the parking lot. It was really beautiful and much nicer than a crowded pathway.
Along the way we saw beautiful trees and the coolest mushrooms. It was quite fun!
2. Bled Castle. On this visit to Bled we didn’t go to Bled Castle because we did a tour of it last year. But if you are in Bled it is definitely worth a visit! The castle is beautiful inside and has a ton of neat exhibits to see, plus you get great views of Lake Bled. We’d recommend going around opening or closing to avoid the midday crowds.
3. Slaščičarna Zima (also know as Confectionary Zima). This is where you want to go to get the famous Cream Cake in Bled. However, you will be very tempted to try more than one piece of pastry, as their display is full of delicious looking treats! We visited more than we’d like to admit, and our favourite cakes were the Cream Cake and the Prekmurska Gibanica Cake. The Prekmurska Gibanica has layered fillings of poppy seeds, walnuts, cottage cheese, apples and cream. It was delicious! It’s a classic in this region of Slovenia.
Hiking in the Julian Alps
Although we really enjoyed our time in Bled, we wanted to go for a hike in the Julian Alps. We drove to the Vogel cable car at Bohinj Lake, about 30 minutes away from Bled. We decided to hike to Rodica’s peak, the highest summit on the south side of Lake Bohinj.
We took the cable car up around 8:30 am so that we could get a nice early start to the hike. There was thick fog covering Lake Bohinj, so we really didn’t have any lake views, but the fog was really neat!
We went up another lift before reaching our starting point. In total the hike took around 6 hours, and we hiked close to 14km. There are many trails to choose from once you are up the lift, so depending on your fitness level and interest, you will be able to find a route to give you amazing mountain views. We will do a blog post soon on our hike to Rodica’s peak!
We had high hopes for Slovenia, mainly because we had seen some parts of this beautiful country blast year. Our time here was great and we really enjoyed being outdoors exploring the nature around these two towns. Our trip was also a bit bittersweet, as we were saying goodbye to the Balkans. The Balkans had been our home since we arrived in Romania in early July, and we really loved our experiences here. So much of Eastern Europe was a mystery to us, and now we feel like we have a better understanding of these lesser-known places. We are so happy we spent our summer here, and we would highly recommend a Balkan trip to anyone looking to discover a bit of adventure.
