Lake Bled, Slovenia Day 32

A beautiful warm, sunny day and we are off to walk around the lake. (~3-4 miles). There is a wide gravel path all the way around. Lots of people walking and biking as it’s a Saturday. The dominant feature of the lake is a small island with a church taking up most of the island. We took a Plenta (type of “man-propelled” boat) over to the island, walked up,the long set of stairs to go into the church. The draw to this church is the long, heavy rope in the middle in front of the altar. You can pull on it and make the church bells ring. See pic of the little girls. We both got the bells to ring as well. 😌. Then back on the boat and to shore to continue our walk.

As we discovered yesterday, this weekend is the European Olympic 2023 Rowing Competition on the lake. Lots of TV trucks and grandstand set up at the finish line. We spent some time on out walk watch/ing parts of various races. We stopped for lunch at a cafe near all the set for the finish of the races. Lots of booths selling gear and loud speakers calling the races. As we went around the backside and up a hill we could see the platform for the winners, just like the Olympics. Quite the scene. Later we found the area where all the boats were being kept - hundreds of expensive long boats.

Our plan was to hike up to the castle when we got to that side of the lake. Hike descriptions said - moderate to strenuous - I was dubious but when we saw the sign, up we went. Quite a few others (all younger). A very long story short - we climbed all the way till we were even with the castle and the stairs to get across a narrow gorge between us and the castle were closed for maintenance! Could not get there from where we were. No sign for that at the bottom. 🤬. Lots of others did the same thing. Back down, VERY carefully we went and gave up on the castle idea for today as we already at 7 miles on our GPS. Finished out short walk around the lake, stopped for a beer and a charcuterie board and home for the evening.

Finished The Tailor (a Turkish series, would not watch the next season) and started Anatomy of a Scandal.Read more