Lake Bled

This morning we paid up at the B&B, walked to the train station to pick up our little black rental car, and in 45 minutes we were here...staying at a farm surrounded by alpine meadows and a 5 minute drive from Lake Bled.

The Mulej family's farm is definitely a working farm; tractors, cows, some Bearnese Mountain farm dogs, stray cats here and there, and lush vegetable patches.


We headed straight out to Bled Castle, which towers about 1 kilometer above the lake and has been there is some form since at least 1044.


At the castle there was lots of history to learn. We hung in there for a while, learnin' some stuff, and then just enjoyed the photo opportunities:

Tiny little glimpse of the island in Lake Bled in this pretty bad self portrait. But doesn't Erin I. have a fabulous hat?

After the castle, we parked our car back down by the lake and embarked on a 3.5 mile stroll around the perimeter. I'm a slow walker, and Erin has short legs (her words, not mine), so our stroll ended up taking about 2.5 hours. We walked past Tito's villa from the glory days of the former Yugoslavia. (We tried to order the famous Lake Bled cake at the restaurant there, but for some reason it wasn't available; we'll try somewhere else tomorrow).

But in any case, the lake, and it's island (the only island in Slovenia!) is quite the definition of picturesque. For instance:

More on the island, and its church, tomorrow, since that's definitely on our agenda, aside from the cake, of course.

We got a little tired towards the end, even after a stop for a cold Cockta, and were dragging a bit. In fact, here's how we both felt when we got back to our room:


I immediately fell asleep for two hours. Erin had to wake me up in time for our farmhouse dinner and we both dragged ourselves downstairs. Part of the deal staying here is having an option to pay a little extra to have home-cooked farmhouse dinner. It was really, really delicious. First course was fresh green beans, then soft polenta with beef stew and a bowl of lightly dressed fresh lettuce, and the dessert...well, I don't know what to call it. It had a first layer kind of like a lemon bar, then a berry (lingonberry, maybe?) compote, topped with a layer of baked meringue. Happy sigh.

After diner we walked around the farm a bit, and an Australian couple stopped us, asked where we were from, and we had a long chat. Turns out she is a teacher too, and he's the principal at the same school, and they're visiting several of the same places we are - plus many more, as they're on a 5 week paid leave, escaping their winter weather, and making the most of the 2o hour flight it takes to get to Europe. We both felt sheepish for complaining about the 10 hours we had. We also had something else in common, starting with Rick and ending in Steves....so funny. We traded tips and agreed that his recommendations are pretty spot on. Of course, it was a Rick Steves recommendation that led us both to this farm in the first place.

Now I'm blogging, and Erin was reading peacefully until the largest bee we've both ever seen came buzzing in the room. I suppose that bugs are part of farm life, but still - yeesh. Erin's doing a great job of bug management while I finish up this post. She's squealing a little, but still a good sport as usual!