Lake Bled: Where where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average

Lake Bled put me in mind of my Minnesotan childhood growing up around summer lakes. It's absolutely a bit more posh than the lake-going I remember from growing up, but there was something perfectly calming and centering about it, and I finished my two days there exhausted but content and happy and urgently emailing all my European friends to tell them to start taking their vacations in Slovenia. After the jump: madness!

YES it is the most touristy possible shot imagineable (the church on an island in the middle of the lake, the castle, the made-for-photo-ops heart) but guess what it's still beautiful you snobs.

I got to Bled at the start of July, before their high season really kicks in; I'm told that by mid-July it's pretty well swarming with tourists from Slovenia and beyond, and August can be a madhouse. This is why a lot of Slovenians will tell you they prefer Lake Bohinj, a little further away; I know that I want to return to Slovenia and check this wild assertion out, but in the meantime, Lake Bled is charming beyond belief. As a bonus, I stayed in Jazz Hostel, which seriously was one of the nicest hostels I've ever encountered. Incredibly clean and pleasant, with no pronounced party atmosphere but a lot of activities (most of which I missed out on oh well life is complex and rich and imperfect) and supremely friendly owners. I don't do a ton of recommending in this space, but I'll recommend them until the cows come home, I will.

Some of these little guys had, honest to god, whipped cream on their beaks from stealing bites from the cream-cakes tourists ordered at the lakeside cafe. I saw a swarm of them descend to dig into a fellow patron's slice when she went to the restroom and her dining companion wasn't paying enough attention to ward them off. It is my theory that these birds all have health problems.

The lake itself takes a couple of hours to stroll around, leaving time to sit and relax or duck up off the path into a few side spots if you'd like. You can, though I did not, hire a boat (file under "things I'd do with a travel companion but was too cheap to take on solo") or pay to be rowed to the island-church that is the lake's icon. You can hike up to the castle atop its bluff for commanding views, as I did my first morning there, or you can climb up an increasingly-insane slope on the other side of the lake, wondering the entire way if you've taken the wrong path as trails give way to a safety rope to pull yourself along a narrow ridge above a steep drop, and eventually a near-vertical staircase made of metal that seems designed less to keep you up and more to remind you of how fragile the human body is, and how prone to falling endlessly. It's outdoorsy fun all the time in Lake Bled.

Not quite yet to the summit; apparently I stopped taking photos around the whole "hang on to this rope so as not to fall" point, though the video gets you a bit more of a vertical vantage.

There's also a lovely national park nearby, featuring the Vintgar Gorge, a slice through the mountains with a thoroughly pleasant boardwalk leading through its cascades and waterfalls. You can snag shuttles there or, if you are especially lunatic, you can do the above hill-climb, descend, and then decide to hike to the gorge (another hour and change) and back (same) on account of "I woke up at 4 AM and if I hike twenty miles I can probably justify having cake for breakfast." PRO TIP: you will feel like death for a little while thereafter, but otherwise this plan TOTALLY WORKS.

The temperature in the gorge also drops something like 15 degrees (F) from the rest of the world, so if you are somebody who struggles a lot in the heat like some of us writing this blog do, it is a haaaaven.

 And it turns out, the breakfast-cake is a thing worth insanely hiking for! Kremna rezina is the main local specialty, a layering of whipped cream and creme patissiere cradled in puff pastry that is insanely heavenly and not overly sweet. As Iva told me in Ljubljana, Slovenes love their dairy, and the why and the how both show in this decadent treat.

I CANNOT OVEREMPHASIZE HOW BADLY I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE THIS BEAUTY.

In short, it was wonderful. A great place to be active and relax, to have a few treats and also take great joy in the quiet and peace of nature. It fed a big ol' part of my soul after the largely citified adventures of the past few weeks, and left me eager to return. That's one of the joys of these travels, I've found. After a few really rough years, between the "you shouldn't seem to be enjoying your life" pressure of (some corners of) grad school/academe, and the not-super-healthy last chapters of the relationship that ran alongside my time there, it's pretty wonderful to have the space and, more importantly, time to patiently figure out what makes me tick, what I need, what gives me joy, and what balances with the urban energy and productive mindset that tends to take the steering wheel in my day-to-day life. I don't kid myself: it's a stupid luxury to get room to work this out, but after some rough years I'm grateful for every opportunity I get, and glad that I'll be going into the future marginally wiser and, hopefully, more generous for it. Dig.

OK BUT I WOULD LIKE TO GO FOR A ROWBOAT RIDE NEXT TIME OK GANG LET'S DO IT