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Is Bled the past participle of to bleed?

Saturday 21st April. Our aim today was Lake Bled in the Julian Alps. On the way we dropped in at Celjé a small Slovenian Town with a partially restored castle, and a compact historical town centre. The castle built on top of a rocky escarpment claims to have been the largest in Slovenia was constructed by a local Counts and Dukes who apparently gave the Hapsburgs a run for their money and earnt their place in Slovenian history. We failed to find the footpath up to the castle, probably just as well with temperatures nudging past the mid-twenties. In the town centre we were told that the neighbouring village of Laski was a place to go and take the waters, Slovenia’s only hot spring, it seems they seem to go for the biggest the best or the unique in their descriptions of things and places. We duly entered Laski in the GPS and ended up a few miles away up the mountain above a steel reclamation plant. We didn’t find the spring but did see an interesting apiary with multiple hives in one brightly painted building. The owner told us they ad produced over 80kg of honey the previous season. I am not sure what the crucifix did on the end the hives, perhaps keep varroa away or inspire the bees to greater effort? Our next whistle stop was Ljubljana the capital. Finding parking was a little challenging, as following its year as European Green City of 2016 they had banned traffic from the city centre. We eventually parked along side a large recreational park and were able to find our way into the city centre. Very attractive baroque architecture with a hill top castle and pleasant riverside. Suffered a devastating earthquake in 15th century and was reduced to rubble and subsequently re-developed with the architecture of the time. There are various guided tours which if we had been earlier in the day may have taken but we did want to get to our destination before darkness. So onwards and upwards into the mountains, well at least the foot hills and we arrived at Lake Bled and found the camp site at the west end of the lake and in spite of it being re-constructed – re-laying hard standings and installing glamping pods very luxurious for us with all mod-cons. Sunday 22nd April. On the camp site this morning there was freshly baked bread and croissants. After breakfast we saddled up our bikes and had a leisurely ride around the lake taking in the atmosphere and enjoying the scenery. I was led to believe that Bled was an undiscovered gem but in actually fact the whole of Slovenia and especially Ljubljana as well of most of The Austrian and German bikers have found it. Never the less it is stunning scenery and they have kept development reasonably restrained, being out of season it was not to busy. After a picnic lunch back at the camp site we walked back down to the lake and hire a row boat and manged to make it out to the island. The rowing regatta which had been taking place over the weekend had finished so as not to be upstage by a some serious rowing from the Brits.

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