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02.11.2019 - 02.11.2019
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I woke up on Saturday the 2nd of November with my raging cold turning even worse. At least the pharmacy was open that day. So I got up, washed and shaved and dressed, and walked to the nearby pharmacy. The chemist told me to keep taking the tablets I bought in Ljubljana but he also sold me a severe-looking bottle of very strong cough syrup. I swallowed my first dose and expeirenced almost instant relief.

Still, all the things I had intended to do in Lake Bled and the surrounding region - bushwalking, chasing waterfalls, perhaps even cycling and mountain climbing - were still out of the question. I decided to just take it easy.

Now that I wasn't coughing my guts up so much and spraying my filthy germs everywhere, I decided it would be safe to go on a little cruise. Lake Bled is famous for its rowboats called "pletna". These are similar to Venetian gondolas but pletnas are propelled with two oars, not poles, and there is a canvas cover over the passenger benches.

I paid a lot of money for my pletna ride, fifteen euros. There were eighteen passengers on my pletna, the pletnas only depart once full. I did the sums - two hundred and seventy euros is more than what I earn in a day. If a pletna owner does three or four trips a day, he would be living like a king, even accounting for the winter months when the lake ices over. I can't imagine there would be too many expenses apart from paying off the loan for the boat's construction. There are no engines to maintain, no moving parts that break down apart from the oars, and maybe a public liability insurance policy, a new coat of hull paint and deck varnish once a year and a new canvas cover every few years would be the only regular expenses. Still, I can't imagine these expenses would take up a huge proportion of the revenue. How do I become a pletna captain?

The boat took off from the main pletna wharf near the casino and the captain stood on top of the stern, rowing the boat using a very similar motion to butterfly swimming. It was very placid, there was no sound apart from the rhythmic gentle splashing of the oars.

After about fifteen minutes of rowing the pletna arrived at Bled Island, we were given forty-five minutes to explore before we had to take the same pletna back. This was ample time, it is only a small island. The seventeenth-century church is cute but is rather plain on the outside. But on the inside - wow. The gilded altar and apse is probably the most elaborately ornate I have ever seen in such a small church. The greatest thing about this church is that there is a rope dangling in the aisle. You make a wish and yank the rope, and the church bells ring. So this is why the bells are constantly ringing all day and echoing across the lake!

There are also the famous stairs leading up to the church. Tradition says that every Slovenian groom has to carry his bride up the ninety-nine stairs. I must ask my diminutive Slovenian colleague at work if he did this.

I caught the pletna back to town and pondered whether I should visit the castle. The only ways up to Bled Castle were by taxi or on foot. I decided to walk up the precipitous outcrop. I reasoned the exercise in the pure mountain air would help boost my immunity.

Bled Castle is one hundred and twenty metres above the lake shore. That's a long way up. There is a marked trail leading up to the castle from the town that zigzags up the outcrop's eastern side. I took it nice and slow, stopping often to catch my breath and admire the breathtaking view.

My efforts were rewarded with amazing views from an amazing castle. The place was busy, being a long weekend, but that didn't detract from the vista over the entire lake, the surrounding mountains, and the town of Bled far below. The castle itself was interesting, there was a mediaeval swordfight reenactment in the bailey as well as an excellent little museum with information about the history of Bled. A Swiss medical practitioner by the name of Dr Rikli founded what would now be called a "wellness retreat" by the lake in the mid-nineteenth century. What we now call "lifestyle diseases" were beginning to affect the European middle and upper classes thanks to the great wave of Victorian industrial prosperity: obesity, hypertension, diabetes. Dr Rikli built a health resort in which patients were required to undergo a strict regime of walking, sunbathing and a bland diet with no alcohol. This worked for many patients, of course, but some found the temptation to eat tasty food and drink alcohol too great, so they snuck out of Rikli's resort and frequented nearby inns. Soon a cottage indsutry of inns, hotels and baths sprang up to cater for all these visitors, and Lake Bled has been a popular tourist attraction ever since.

The sun had set by the time I finished with the castle, but the path was softly lit. I had dinner at a gostilna - a pub/restaurant combination that is common in Slovenia - and fell in conversation with an eccentric young bartender with a mild speech impediment and the most astounding capacity for amassing general knowledge. The barman was a geogrpahy nerd just like me, and I was so surprised when he let it be known that he had heard of Bathurst, a country town of thirty-five thousand people I once lived in for two years. He knew about Bathurst's annual car race and its goldrush history and that it was on the other side of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. He could name every Australian state and territory as well as their capital cities. Keep in mind that he had never been to Australia. I was not expecting a Slovenian bartender to know so much about Bathurst. That would be like me knowing everything about Celje or Maribor. I might be a geography nerd but my skills only stretch so far. I dips me lid.

Pletna on Lake Bled