MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
Slovenia and Portugal Trip
Day 6 - May 9 2023
Of course, we had to start our day off with Fetiche Patisserie desserts! This time, we got the Yuzu and coconut dessert and a hazelnut and caramel dessert. To wash it down, some really good espresso. The caramel hazelnut dessert was so good and super rich. The yuzu dessert was so fresh and lightly tart. The beautiful leaf is not just for decoration, either. A bite without any leaf was slightly leaning on the coconut. When we ate a bite with the leaf, a very strong yuzu flavor, it balanced the flavors so it was perfectly tart. Because I am so gluttonous on vacation, I got a pain au chocolate and “dragon roll,” a filled croissant roll dipped in chocolate and hazelnuts, for the road.
This was the long-awaited Bled and Bohinj (pronounced bohin) lakes day. We had to do a lot of balancing weather into our plans each day and the lakes either had terrible weather or we needed the good weather for other activities, but we finally got a day of decent weather for the hikes. We first drove to lake Bled. If you google “Slovenia” and go to images, 10 out of 15 pictures will be of lake Bled. Most travel blogs we saw for Slovenia had two destinations: Ljubljana and Lake Bled. We wanted to hit it first since it can get very crowded. Thankfully, we have found that getting anywhere in Slovenia “before the crowds” is getting there before noon. It’s great news for us, since we are big fans of sleeping until 8. Since it’s a bit too cold for kayaking or paddle boarding, we only had one activity planned for the lake: hiking the Mala Osojnica trail to get the postcard, elevated, shot of the island and church in the middle of the lake.
After the hour drive, we found parking easily and walked about 15 minutes to the trailhead. We then started up the very steep ascent to the top of the hill. I had read the hike was steep and had some stairs to assist in the ascent, but we were not quite prepared for this level of steep. Parts of the trail had metal wires bolted to the side of the cliff to hold onto while we traversed the narrow trail. Just before the first lookout was a VERY steep set of metal stairs. The steps were so narrow and tall, you had to walk sideways up them, gripping to the handrail (if you’re a scaredy cat like me) to get up them. I was not a fan. Mike was fine, of course. One thing was certain, I was not going back down those. Thankfully, we only passed a couple people on the trail, so we weren’t contending with crowds on the trails or at the lookout.
We chatted with a couple from Canada who had just come down from the next lookout saying it was not too much farther up. Another 5 minute ascent and we were at the finale and it was incredible. As long as I did not have to go back down the stairway to hell, it was worth the effort.
At the final lookout, there was another couple from the UK that had hiked up a different path to get there (YAYYY!!), so we went that direction and had a rockier, but much less steep and sketchy descent, thankfully.
Once down from the trail, we walked along the lake back to the car park.
Back in the car, we drove to Lake Bohinj, just a 30 minute drive away. This lake does not have the island church in the middle, but is just as beautiful and is less visited than Bled. As with everywhere we have visited here, the views were stunning and we almost had the lake to ourselves. After walking the lake path and soaking our feet in the crystal clear water, we packed up and headed out for lunch in a town on the way back, in Skofja Loka.
I had heard about a collection of restaurants here in Slovenia called Das Ist Valter, which serves casual Bosnian food, from a travel podcast I listen to. They talked about these sausages tucked into bread served with onions and cheese. Luckily for us, there was one of the restaurants right in Skofja Loka!
We found some parking and a table at Das Ist Valter. We ordered two meals of their two sausages. One sausage is a ground meat with spices, similar to a breakfast link, but less herby and not sweet, thankfully. The second was similar to a kielbasa, but stronger paprika flavor and spicier. The sausages are sandwiched between an incredibly soft bread that reminded us of a soft, giant, english muffin that perfectly soaked up the butter and grease from the sausages. On the side was chopped raw onion and we got a side of the cheese, a salty spreadable kind. We also got a side of fries and some juices. (Fruit juice, not from concentrate or mixed with other juices, but straight fruit juice is on every menu here, from casual places to nice restaurants. And they are delicious.) It was SO GOOD. And so cheap. All this food and drink was $25.
We had to waddle our way out of the restaurant we ate so much, but slowly made our way to the downtown area. Most shops were closed by the time we were walking around, at 5:30. It was a super cute town with some beautiful shots of the river on the bridges in, It was a short visit but we were OK with that. We were a bit beat and dirty from our treks.
After making it back home and cleaning up, we wanted to walk around town to see the city at night. It gets dark so late here and we have been back in the hotel while it’s still light each night.
We walked along the river snapping pictures and enjoying the more relaxed vibe than the bustling daytime. We grabbed some lemonades at a riverside bar, then stopped back at Babu’s for takeout to eat at the hotel room.
