After a very long tunnel and a first-time walk across train tracks at a station, we arrived in Bled. It is a small town in the north of Slovenia known for its large and clear blue lake. We were visiting primarily for my sister’s wedding but ended up being very glad we went as it is a wonderful place and we were glad to have a break from big cities. We liked it so much we stayed an extra night.

After getting a cheap taxi from the station, we dumped our stuff in the ‘aparthostel’ (apartment, not hostel), and went out to search for food. We had dinner in a nice Chinese called Peking, eventually found the ‘devil bar’ and had some agreeably parentally-funded drinks before walking home in the dark brandishing phone screens at oncoming traffic.

Next day we had an amazing breakfast in the 4-star Park Hotel my parents and co. were staying in which included the first sight of bacon (speck) and was probably the best breakfast spread I’ve ever seen for €13.50 (non guests). Then of course there was the wedding itself, which is amply immortalised in hundreds of photos and videos. It was an amazing day and a lot of food and drink went down very well!

On the slightly hungover day after we went for breakfast with Sue and then spent some time swimming in the wonderful Lake Bled. We tried to sneak into a 5-star hotel lido area (€15) with our friends but got caught and had to go. After finding an almost as good spot on the grass next to the closed off area we considered an amphibious landing but decided against it. I tried to chase some of the many ducks on the lake but came to the conclusion that they are a lot better than me at swimming.

In the evening we went for a gigantic pizza at ‘Pizza Rustica’ which was only about €7 and very tasty, bizarrely we walked past some goats in a little paddock at the side of the street on the way. Later we went for slightly more relaxed drinking, deciding that the ‘Vegas Club’ might be a bit much for the moment.

On our (unfortunately) last day we went to Vintgar Gorge on the bus early in the morning. It is stunning with crystal clear water (we could see right to the bottom) and a lot of waterfalls and little whirlpools. We drank some of the water and it tasted great and fresh. We could see lots of fish presumably waiting for food coming downstream. After a lot of walking we ate some of the fish at the restaurant near the end of the gorge. I felt a mixture of being impressed and sorry for the fish when we saw a man walk into the restaurant after we ordered with a net full of them.

Finally we had dinner in the hotel restaurant buffet which was brilliant – ‘Slovenian food night’. We made a return to the ‘Art Cafe’ for more drinking later and had to say our goodbyes. Tomorrow (Monday) we were bound for Vienna!

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