Wonderfully off piste, if you will. I'm not one much for cold weather, so I believe the last time I went snowboarding was during a visit to Slovenia in 2007.
While I had spent the previous few days in Croatia and would end this trip in Ljubljana, Bled was absolutely the highlight. So much so that now when I see a picture of a castle nestled along the ridge of a mountain or a tranquil scene of some water feature surrounded by peaks of stone and forest, I'm cursed to think, "well, it's pretty, but it's not Bled, is it?"
Joking! Nothing worse than a jaded, pretentious traveler, is there?
Surrounded by the Julian Alps, the town of Bled lies on the shores of Lake Bled. Fed by glacier water, the lake itself would be beautiful enough - but stretching over the lake stands a huge cliff face of rock, striking, but this cliff features its own 11th Century castle!
If that weren't enough, there's a small island on the lake. On the island rises a staircase leading up to a 12th Century church which stands perfectly balanced below the gaze of the castle.
