Lesce / Bled Day 3 (August 16 2012)
Ralph here. Because this was our last day in the Lesce / Bled area, we decided to use our rented bicycles to head back to Bled and see the sights there. As I mentioned in a previous entry, Bled is primarily a spa and resort town, with two main sights – Bled Castle, sitting high above Lake Bled; and Slovenia’s only island, which is in the middle of the lake and has a church on it.
We biked into Bled and were unsure how to get up above the town to Bled Castle. Lynnae had the reasonable idea to follow all the traffic that was headed in the general direction of the Castle, which proved to be the winning ticket – we soon faced an immense uphill that left us pushing our bicycles for nearly a half mile to the castle.
Bled Castle lit up at night
The island and church
Once we arrived at the Castle, we both rested for a bit at an outdoor terrace café and realized just how far up we really were. [Not really surprising after our uphill climb with the bicycles. Once on the castle grounds, we continued uphill on foot. Also, the café had pretty good ice cream.] The Castle is now a museum about the Bled area from prehistory until the forging of its identity as a resort town after a Swiss man named Arnold Rikli began touting the healing properties of its water in 1854. Random Wikipedia fact: Bled is where the Yugoslav “benevolent dictator” Josip Tito had his summer residence in Bled.
Castle grounds
View of the countryside near the lake, from the Castle
Castle chapel
While we were touring the castle grounds, storm clouds began to gather over Bled. We thought it might be a short shower, so we retired to the castle restaurant to eat some overpriced broth (I refuse to call it stew, despite the menu’s deception) and wait it out. [We also ordered the cream cake the region is known for. I’m not really a huge fan of cake in general but I was unimpressed.] This was a losing strategy, and we eventually realized it wasn’t going to stop raining anytime soon.
[Other than the views, the castle was disappointing. The museum detailing the history of the area was good but everything else was kind of meh. It was all set up as shops. For example, walk into a blacksmith’s forge; it’s a gift shop. See the wine cellar; it’s a gift shop. There weren’t any demonstrations or displays, just wares for sale. Of course, they also had the official gift shop. I would have felt we overpaid but the views were pretty great and it was nice to rest after the long trek uphill.]
Because we were getting rained out, we decided to scratch the island and its church off our to-do list – neither of us was eager to get soaked rowing a boat out there, so we smoked the brakes on our rented bicycles and skidded our way back down from Bled Castle. As the rain continued steadily, we rode to the tour company office and picked up a CD of photos from the previous day (included in our fee), returned the bikes, and sought refuge in the town bus shelter. A local bus took us back to Lesce, and we walked the short remaining distance to the warmth and indoorness of our hotel.
[We were really fortunate that this was the only time the weather interfered with our plans. We were especially lucky that we weren’t particularly attached to these specific plans. However, it was quite cold riding through the very cold rain. We were most definitely inappropriately dressed for the weather. Hereafter we resolved to consult the weather forecast daily.]
After buying some groceries from the “Hofer” (ALDI) adjacent to the hotel, we ate dinner in our room and planned our next day’s travels to the Slovenian coast.
Our Random Travels 