Day Two in Slovenia started bright and sunny with a lovely clear blue sky, we were out slightly later than usual after a busy day the day before and so had a late breakfast after breakfast we were going to head up to the Castle.
We decided to drive up to the castle as it was a long walk and I don’t think I could have made it , we were lucky that we went up a little early because the car park was busy but we managed to get parked near the top.
We then had the walk we did the previous evening up to the ticket office and entry into the Castle.
We could all start to see the Magnificent views even though we were not at the top of the Castle, but we would soon be there.
On the way there we stopped at the printing shop which is one of the shops in the Castle and here you can discover all things about printing in Slovenia and it holds one of the oldest printing presses in Slovenia we grabbed a couple of souvenirs while we were here.
We continued with The Climb and made our way to the top of the Castle where the views of the surrounding countryside and the lake were amazing, you could see for miles although in some directions there was a slight mist.
The Castle as you can imagine also had a souvenir shop and Barbara headed straight there to see what she could buy, I must admit I followed her there and found a book called Slovenology, which I thought looked interesting and so I bought a copy for myself, I then later Returned and bought a copy for my sister-in-law.
We spent a bit of time taking in the views and of course taking lots of photographs.
We then headed to the restaurant where we had dinner the previous evening and enjoyed a cup of coffee on arrival, we were met by the same staff who had looked after us so well on the previous evening. They welcomed us and showed us to our table, and we enjoyed our coffee with a great view.
We spent a little more time exploring the Castle up onto the battlements and so on before heading back down to Bled and some lunch.
Once we got down to Bled, we headed to the Panorama Cafe which we had seen earlier for our lunch. I again went for soup, but this time I went for the goulash and potato cake it was lovely, not too spicy but with great flavour and very warming after being out in the cold. I also opted for a beer just to re-hydrate.
After lunch some of the group felt like a little bit of exercise and decided to cycle around the lake it was quite chilly, so I thought they were being very brave.
They hired bikes from the information centre and set off, we gave them a wave and then opted to drive around the Lake by car.
We met them at the halfway point at a small restaurant called Restavracija Camping Bled. They were very pleased to see us and warm up inside and have a hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was lovely really thick and tasty. We drank them with a spoon!
The views from the western end of the lake were just as stunning as the view from Bled and the hotel, and as the sun was setting and the water very still there were some fantastic reflections of the Castle and the island and the Pilgrimage Church of the Assumption of Maria.
After our hot chocolates they continued their cycle ride around the lake, and we jumped back in the car to continue our car journey around the lake, we passed through some lovely villages with a distinct alpine feel.
For dinner tonight we had booked a restaurant near the hotel called Oštarija Peglez’n. It served the local cuisine and wine and we all took out time choosing what we liked, the service and the food and of course of wine were all excellent everybody enjoyed what they had and some of us even shared.
I opted for a local spicy sausage which was lovely. We went for a red wine, a Cabernet Frank called Ščurek. It was nice and very smooth and complimented all our different food choices.
And then it was off to bed as we had an early start in the morning as we were heading to Ljubljana for New Year.
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