Jen and Rebecca Circumnavigate the Lake

So losing your luggage isn’t too terrible. Getting ready in the morning takes a lot less time without any hair and cosmetic products. And there’s no indecisiveness about what to wear. At least our hotel shower was nice and warm and Adria Air provided some shampoo (that is also functioning as body wash) as well as deodorant! Our farmhouse accommodations served us a lovely breakfast before we headed into the town of Bled for a day taking in the beautiful vistas of Lake Bled. Unfortunately, the cloudy, foggy weather prevented us from seeing the full majesty of the Julian Alps as the backdrop to the castle and such. We managed to take about 60 pictures of the Island and its church from various perspectives between the three of us anyway.

Pretty church on the Island.

We began our trek around the lake with a visit to a lovely church before beginning the hike up the hill to Bled Castle. (We got a little sweatier than we might have preferred having no clean clothes to change into...but at least we’d all worn hiking-appropriate shoes on the plane.) We climbed the ramparts, ooed and ahed at the views, visited the wine cellar and perused the museum.

Rebecca and Anna on the ramparts.

We got waylaid by some snails before continuing the 3.5 mile trek around the lake. We saw some intrepid swimmers in the lake, but it was a bit too cloudy and chilly for us on that score. Plus our swimsuits are in our missing luggage. Sadly, so are our rain jackets and umbrellas, which we needed a little later as well. We had a delicious light lunch at the Vila Bled, the former summer home of Yugoslav President Tito where he greeted guests such as Khrushchev. We snuck upstairs to see Tito’s Socialist murals before heading back out to the lake to be rowed to the island on a traditional pletna boat. On the Island, we rung the church bell three times each which is supposed to make all of your dreams come true. Right now, our only dream is to see our luggage before we leave Slovenia for Croatia in 5 days.

Jen, dreaming of finding her luggage.



Rebecca, queen of the pletna.

Once back on the mainland, we finished our lake walk in the rain then sought shelter with a traditional Bled cream cake. It was sinfully creamy and delicious. We wandered through the shopping area where Anna and Rebecca broke down and bought some new underwear. This may have been the most exciting part of our day. Rebecca also bought a t-shirt from a second hand store, but once we used the urban dictionary to determine what the Slovene saying on the shirt may connote, she will probably never ever wear it. We finished our day with some stick-to-your-ribs meaty Slovenian dinner with Slovenian wine and fortunately found our farm lodgings in the rainy dark way easier than we did the night before.