Rock up at lake Bled and you will possibly witness the most beautiful Alpine lake you have ever seen.. Until that is, you go just 25 mins further into the Slovenian Julian Alps and discover Lake Bohinj for the first time!

The English poet William Wordsmith probably never had the good luck to come see Lake Bled for himself, but he wrote a poem that our class of 12 year olds were forced to learn word for word by our glamorous, silver haired, chain smoking English teacher, Mrs Ashman and these words popped back into my head when strolling lake side at Bled in the week before Easter..

Many countries call Daffodils "Narcissus" in their native languages, which sounds a bit scary for such a lovely floppy golden spring flower.. and Daffodils have the added significance to us Welsh as our national flower.. (By the way, if you do not have a national flower, then why not)?!

There is only ONE spot around the entire lake when you can capture a photo of the BIG THREE, this pointy church, Bled castle and the chuch on the island in one photo and this is NOT that spot!

Well just imagine the feeling of strolling next to an empty lake Bled eyeing that rolling panorama with the little church perched on the island in the middle of the crystal clear lake, the stunning castle on top of the cliff and the mountains forming the backdrop..

And on this visit, a host of golden daffodils were fluttering lake side providing an extra sprinkling of spring magic to this pretty picture..

Back at lovely Minehead Middle school in the 1980's, we had to learn this and other famous poems by heart, but I confess to not knowing exactly where the great wordsmith actually was, when penning his epic lines, (think it was probubbly one of the beautiful lakes of the English Lake District)..

A warm cloudy April afternoon by one of the most beautiful lakes in Europe..

Anyway, here are his words and they fit so beautifully with the scene we saw at Lake Bled that we were moved to write them also here for you to consider..

I wandered lonely as a cloud,

That floats on high o'er (over) vales (valleys) and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

William Wordsworth 1804

Wow, this is the English language in simple perfection and a most fitting companion to this most beautiful lake..

You can walk around the lake in about an hour and a bit, but you won't, cos you will need half an hour extra to take photos..

Tell me something about Lake Bled then!!

Nah, we concentrate in this website on helping new & returning vistors to Green Slovenia find the hundreds of other amazing Secret Green Places to Visit..

There is so much focus and good & bad tittle tattle written about Lake Bled, Ljubblyljana, the Postojna cave and Piran, that you could be forgiven for thinking that these were the only places worth visiting in the most beautiful Green country in Europe!

We won't be adding to all that cyber junk written by the 2 or 3 day travelling expert monkeys!

Lake Bled is an absolute Quacker..

But we WILL give you another little nudge in the right direction to remind you, once more, to make sure you really DO go see Lake Bohinj, where another even more famous English writer actually DID visit on hols..

Yep, Agatha Christie was staying at Lake Bohinj when a local journalist asked her the highly predictabubble question of whether she was writing a new story and she replied something like, "One's mind cannot turn to murder in a place so beautiful", (which maybe only Brits could properly translate as meaning something not quite so polite sounding)!

So go see that lake Bohinj too! We have a simple "Rule of Three" for Bled & Bohinj.. If you have 3 mins, hours or days, then spend two of them at Bohinj and one at Bled and that will be just about right!

You couldn't imagine a better spot to pop an island with a church in the middle of a stunning lake..

Well, Lodge guests can pick & choose which is the best day to do their daytrip to Bled and / or Bohinj, with just a one hour direct motorway drive to Bled and we can also remind you that Lake Bled is absolutely stunning in EVERY different month of the year.

The lake and environs change to refelct the seasons in every single month of the year, so you will see a different side of it depending when you visit and on our latest trip, we rocked up at the start of April in the week before Easter to find empty car parks, easy to get seats direct at lake side in the cafes and of course, this most stunning display of daffodils!

Indeed, we didn't rush, leaving the Lodge mid morning and parking up easily in our fave secret car park, then having a fab burger in the burger bar next to the "Dolinka Zipline" office, just on the edge of the small Bled old town in the closest corner of the lake with that other pretty church and the pointy steeple.

Zipping around at Bled, just look at the views here over the river and to the mountains..

We had booked to do the uber amazing longest Zipline in Europe with friends. We checked in for 2pm, got kitted up and were whisked up by minibus into the forests above Bled to the first of the 7 epic zipline rides, 6 of them directly over the stunningly clear blue Sava Dolinka river..

We still had time after the action to stroll along the lake and this is where we saw the daffodils, fluttering and dancing in the breeze on the side of the lake..

In April & May, you get the new ducklings, cygnets (baby swans) and all the other flowers and leaves springing up around this lake, so we felt lucky to be here and experience it all at this particular time of year..

There is a small old town tucked away behind this church in this corner of Bled..

We breezed into that lovely main cafe (the one with the robot waiters), with stunning views out over the lake, easily picking off some lake side seats and ordering our traditional crem schnittas with cappucinos!

And that was OUR April adventure to Bled on this particular occasion, heavenly & perfectly within our control..

Maybe our guests will choose between doing a circuit of the lake, go up to the castle for the view, take a Pletna (Slovenian gondola) ride to the island with the church and ring the bell, visit stunning Vintgar Gorge, have a side visit to lake Bohinj, Kamen Castle, Pokluka Plateau or Radovlica old town for some choccy & tea.. But that will be their choice and we will help make it as easy as possible for them!

A small army of hedgehogs were forming to commence an attack on the castle..

On this visit, we finally saw the start of a new roundabout just before Bled that will EVENTUALLY lead the lake Bohinj bound traffic away from Lake Bled.. but of course this is where the new traffic bottleneck will form!

Maybe, sometime, the authorities in Bled will finally take the logical and obvious decision to set up a huge park & ride at the motorway with free electric buses and lane priority to the lake, so the lines of cars do not choke the fun out of high summer in Bled..

It wasn't exactly my free choice to learn the poem about the Daffodils, but thank you Mrs Ashman for inspiring a whole generation of seaside kids to both love & fear poetry and this blog is dedicated to your memory and to say your efforts were not forgotten!

I feel ashamed at how cheeky and bad my English has gotten, but boy oh boy, I never forgot that poem!

Have a great day out in Bled!