Bled Castle
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Lake Bled |
Boat paddle |
The boat is called a Pletna
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Our boat |
Sculling us to the island
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Boaters on the lake
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On the island we walked around to the church, Gale climbed the clock tower (100 steps), and we walked around this island looking at the beautiful, clear, turquoise green water. |
Bled Island |
Lake Bled and scenery
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Bled Island |
Lots of steps
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The Rowing Center at Lake Bled |
Tito's former residence
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Assumption of Mary Pilgrimage Church - under restoration
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Steeple |
Bell ropes
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Bell mehanism |
Lots of little fish
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Then you have to go down those stairs
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Beautiful setting
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We were able to look aross the lake to watch the races at the rowing center on Lake Bled. The rowing course is marked for 2000 meter races, the standard for world and Olympic competition. We haven’t seen this since leaving the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.
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Rowing Center
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Boats on the lake |
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A race
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We were taken back to town on another Pletna and our bus drove us to the bottom of Bled Castle. We walked up the steep path and toured around looking in the small chapel with a 1550 book, the oldest one found to be written in Slovene, the printers shop, the forge, and a small museum. But best was the views to the northwest of the Julian Alps and to the northeast and the Karavanke Alps. Supposedly, Julius Caesar crossed the Julian Alps, hence the name. We could see a summer Alpine sled on rails ride down one mountain like I saw in Switzerland many years ago. We looked across at the Vila Bled which Tito favored.
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Julian Alps
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Julian Alps |
Alpine sled run
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Sports field |
Karavanke Alps |
Old building with interesting shutters
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Book from the 1550s
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Bikers with a problem |
We left Bled and drove to Radovljica, a small Middle Ages village. We learned about what they call gingerbread which has no ginger and should be called honey bread. They let the cookies dry hard and paint them as hearts, dolls, or horses. We ate lunch at the gingerbread place which was a 1500s house. We had Slovenian/Bavarian food with sausages, German potatoes, sauerkraut, and sour turnips. It was pretty good. The owner then came and entertained us with two harmonica songs.
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Village of Radovljica
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Village of Radovljica |
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Gingerbread Store |
Making Gingerbread
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Making Gingerbread |
For sale
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Harmonica entertainment
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We had some time to walk the block of town. We stepped into the Roman Catholic St. Peter’s Church and listened to a young man playing the organ at full blast. Outside the church was an oompah-band playing for the gathering wedding guests. The bride and groom came out of the town hall (civil service) and then would go to the church for the Catholic service. Radovljia is a very cute small town.
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St. Peter's Church
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St. Peter's Church organ |
St. Peter's Church
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More views from the bus
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More views from the bus |
More views from the bus
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After our return to Ljubljana, we strolled around the town. Today they had at least 50 kiosks offering samples of wines. Town was crowded with happy people by 5:30 PM! The cathedral door was open so we went in. It is another golden, ostentatious house of “worship!”
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Faxcinating building |
Doors of the Cathedral
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Dragon on the dragon bridge - 2 views
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Street light
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We met Ines and four others for pizza at Aura restaurant. It was a sister of the one we ate at yesterday and just as good.
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