Bled, Slovenia

The Republic of Slovenia. Do you know where it is? Just north of Italy, south of Austria, a little to the west of Croatia, and occupying tiny stretch of Adriatic coastline. Slovenia split from the former Yugoslavia and became an independent country in 1991. A member of NATO since 2004 and joined the Eurozone in 2007.

Bled is a charming spa town of just over 6000 people in Northwest Slovenia. Bled Castle has stood at the top of this rocky cliff 100 meters above Lake Bled since the 11th century. The crane is a much later addition.

The choir gave a concert in St. Martin's Church (Župnijska cerkev svetega Martina). The Neo-Gothic church was completed in 1905, and contains a number of frescoes painted in 1930, one portraying Lenin as Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper. They weren't too keen on Lenin.

We did some shopping at the local grocery store. Better get that bad apple out of there!

This friendly gentleman was demonstrating his lookalike bookmarks that he was selling in his souvenir shop. He was the proud dad of two daughters, one was a ballet dancer, and the other was the Slovenian mountain biking champion.

A wall of canisters of tea.... every flavour you could imagine. I bought some fragrant herbal tea to take home as gifts.

Above: A topographic map of the area around Bled displayed on the main street.... these mountains are the Julian Alps, a popular winter sports destination. A showery day, but the rain didn't spoil our enjoyment of a lovely town.

More pictures to come.
If you have visited Bled in Slovenia, please leave a comment and tell me about it.