On Thursday we had a 72 mile drive to get to our next destination - the area around Lake Bohinj. Since we couldn't check in to our apartment until later in the afternoon, we stopped for some lunch and sightseeing in a small town called Radovljica and planned to maybe also stop in at Lake Bled after lunch.
The informal nickname of Radovljica is the "sweetest Slovenian town" because of its association with honey, chocolate, and gingerbread cookies (lect in Slovenian). The cookies are flavored with honey and baked specifically to be iced and decorated. The most popular color and shape is a red heart.
One of the main attractions in the old town of Radovljica is the Museum of Apiculture. As I mentioned in a previous post, Slovenia has more beekeepers per capita than any other country, and Slovenian Beekeeping specifically is listed by UNESCO as part of the world's Intangible Cultural Heritage. A folk tradition associated with beekeeping is painting the wooden front panels of the beehives with decorative scenes. These vivid paintings depict saints and biblical stories as well as scenes from everyday life.
Sometimes the creative artistry extended to the beehives themselves, like this large wooden beekeeper who literally kept bees in his torso.
One of the reasons beekeeping is so widespread here is down to the Carniolan honey bee, which is native to Slovenia and prized throughout the beekeeping world for its longevity, adaptability, resistance to disease, and lack of aggression. Even when its hive is being raided by bears.
After lunch in Radovljica we drove through the town of Bled but the late afternoon traffic was unbelievable and there were no parking spaces to be had. It's the European August holiday, so we were expecting some crowds but by far this is the most crowded/touristed part of Slovenia we've seen. We decided instead to continue on to our lodging in Lake Bohinj. It was only a 30 minute drive so we made plans to just come back up to Bled the next day and get an earlier start. We easily found parking at 8am on Friday and made a beeline (see what I did there?) for the trail leading to the Ojstrica peak which is the iconic viewpoint of Lake Bled. The last section of the climb to the top is a little bit of a scramble where you have to use your hands to help pull yourself up, so we were glad to get there before the trail got too crowded.
After the hike, we rewarded ourselves by sharing a slice of Bled cream cake (blejska kremšnita). The cake is a signature pastry for this region, and you see it for sale everywhere. It has a puff pastry base with a layer of vanilla cream custard, followed by a layer of whip cream, then it's topped by more pastry and powdered sugar. Very decadent!
Maybe we over-rewarded ourselves with the cake, so we decided to keep walking all the way around the lake - a distance of about four miles. The path was flat and pleasant at first but all of Europe is currently in a "heat dome" so by the time we were halfway around it started to feel pretty hot. We stopped at the Bled Castle Bathing Area to take a dip in the lake and cool off. We hadn't brought any lake shoes so climbing into the water from a wooden deck and swim ladder was a lot more pleasant than walking in from shore with bare feet on sharp rocks covered in algae. The small entrance fee was worth it to have easy access - the water was so refreshing and we had great views of the island and surrounding hills.
After our swim, we continued our walk to the boat docks on the southern side of the lake and took a ride on a traditional wooden pletna boat to get to the tiny island in the middle of the lake.
Each heavy pletna boat holds 20 passengers and is propelled by a single boatman using massive oars. Only 22 families have the right to ferry passengers on the lake to the island, and the profession is handed down through the generations. Our boatman was Alex and he was a 5th generation oarsman (his boat "Larissa" was named after his mother). Amazingly he was able to row and give us a running commentary about the lake at the same time. He also gave us some great tips on hiking spots near where we are staying in Bohinj.
Once you arrive at the island, you go up the stone staircase to the Church of the Assumption. A local tradition here is that when you get married, the groom carries the bride up all 99 steps. I was happy to just get myself up and down those steps without injury - there is no elevator here. Once you get up the steps there's not really that much to see on the island - just the church, the belltower, and a few small buildings including a museum and cafe. It only took about 45 minutes for us to explore the entire island, including sitting down for a quick espresso at the cafe. But the whole experience - including the pletna boat ride and scenery of being out on the lake - was a great way to end our day in Lake Bled.
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