Eastern Europe - Day 23 - Bled

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Today was heaven and hell.

The hell was the fact that I got on a train yesterday (after a full day of sightseeing) and spent the next 12 hours awake on trains travelling to get to Slovenia. The first train was a lovely train that took me from Berlin to Munich. This train was the epitome of German cleanliness and efficiency. Although it was a frightfully busy train, the route must be very popular. After an hour's stopover at Munich (from 22:50 to 23:40) I hopped on board a not so nice train to complete my journey from Munich to Bled, Slovenia. The train wasn't all that bad (especially after some of the ones in India) however it was certainly a step down from the other train. The biggest problem with the train was the fact that it was rather old, and had no way of updating you were you were on your journey and how much longer you had to your destination. This was a bit of an issue since it was an overnight train so once you had fallen asleep you lost all track of time and location.

In the end this didn't turn out to be the biggest problem in the world as the friendly officials on the train seemed most determine to not allow you to sleep. I had been a bit cheap and hadn't paid the extra euros required to get a sleeperbed on the train. Instead I only paid the 4 euros to get a seat on the train (carraige 279, seat 36 to be precise). The sleeper was only 13 euros but the cost of the train ticket itself was 162 euros and when the total got up to 190+ for the sleeper bed just couldn't do it. I was very lucky in that there was only one other person in the compartment with me so we could take one side each and lie down across 3 seats and try and get some sleep. However we hadn't factored in the ticket checkers and the police who took great pleasure in bursting in through the compartment door at least 3 times during the trip to check various pieces of documentation. Usually at about hour intervals. So this meant that I got no sleep on the train. However I still didn't know where I was. So when I got everything ready to hop off the train at 5:20am (which is when we were due to arrive in Bled, Slovenia) I was a little startled to see that we still appeared to be travelling through Austria. In fact that train was running an hour + late and we didn't get to Bled until around 7am. This was good for me as it meant that the buses were running and that when I finally got to my hotel (after trudging around lost for about 20 minutes) the reception was open.

My hotel pension is possibly the best place that I have ever stayed in. It is absoltuely gorgeous, the staff are super super friendly and I am on half board (breakfast and dinner included) not to mention the fact that they have a spa as part of the pension (manicure is already booked for the morning of the 27th) and they will give you free bike rental, free internet access - the list goes on. Just take my word for it, this is the place to stay if you ever come to Lake Bled - The Alp Pension.

So after checking into the hotel, I took a quick shower and then headed out to take in the sights of Bled. My first stop was a walk around the lake and up the eight and a half million steps to get to the top of Bled Castle. I got a bit of a surprise at the top of the hill when I saw all the tour buses at the top (you obviously dont' have to walk up the hill if you dont' want to). But to get to the castle entrance there were still some more steps, and boy were the old, blue rinse brigade puffing and wheezing when they got to the castle entrance. I think they would all have died if they had had to walk up from the bottom by the lake like I did. The castle itself is a bit ho-hum. They have a museum that goes with it, but it wasn't all that interesting. For some reason they didn't really focus on the history of the castle itself, but talked more about who Bled was geographically formed. However the views from the castle were amazing and totally worth the walk and 7 euro entrance fee. The view was even worth putting up with the disinterested school children running around at the top.

After visiting the castle I decided to go back to the pension to pick up a bike and do the bike ride around the lake. It is only 6kms and you could totally walk it, but after being awake all night, getting lost in the morning trying to find the pension (which was a good 20 minute walk from the bus station) and then walking up to the castle I was a little pooped and my feet were asking for a rest. So I grabbed a bike and headed off (via the supermarket to pick myself up a little picnic lunch to have on the way - including a mini bottle of the local bubbles). You should be able to see from the photos that the lake and vistas around the lake are just amazing. Everywhere I looked I just wanted to take another photo. In all I did manage to take over 150 photos today. I came back to the pension at about 3pm to have a wee rest and update all my internet stuff, however I actually fell alseep using my laptop and had to take a wee nap (of 2.5 hours) before I could write this blog. Early night tonight I think 😊

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