Lake Bled is a place where it never stops raining. At least that’s the way it will appear in my mind whenever I hear or read about it. It was pouring with rain when we boarded the bus in Ljubljana last month; it was raining even harder when we arrived in Bled. By the time we had dropped our backpacks off at our guest house, my shoes were soaked so badly they were losing their shape while I was able to wring a Slovenian coffee’s worth of water out of each sock. I changed into a dry pair of shoes – I wish I’d had a pair of fins instead.
But there’s no point moping around just because of the weather. We completed the 6km walking trail around the lake, during which time the rain briefly dropped in intensity, without ever hinting at stopping. The low clouds that surrounded the lake hid a landscape of dramatic cliffs and beautiful distant peaks; I know this from the posters at the bus station. In place of the deep blue and turquoise water we saw an endless pool of impenetrable black; at least we had the path pretty much to ourselves.
We stopped in a bar for lunch and having left a large, suspicious pool of rainwater under our table we moved on quickly, barely noticing that the rain had stepped up a notch again. My waterproof coat was now beyond useless and as we walked up to the castle, my feet were now so wet that each step produced an impressive jet of water from the all-too-porous shoes. We decided not to spend €16 to see a panoramic 360 degree view of more clouds.
It rained as we made our way to dinner and then even harder as we made our way back to the guest house in the dark. It rained without a break all night as far as I could tell. Our clothes were dry the following morning, at least until we walked out in the rain to find some breakfast.
Later in the morning it happened. The rain stopped, almost at the precise moment that we boarded the bus back to Ljubljana. I heard that the sun even came out that afternoon, although by then we were long gone.
If you mention Lake Bled to me, I’ll immediately think of rain. Of course it’s not Lake Bled’s fault – rather it was the result of bad planning on my part to arrive in Slovenia a day before a spell of very bad weather. I was drawn to Lake Bled by those photos of stunning Alpine peaks reflected in the water – I’ll have to return sometime if I want to wash away my very real picture of that same view obscured by stubborn, gloomy clouds.
