A very big fish!

Thursday 16 August 2018

What a wonderful day in Bled! Both slept well (despite sharing our first double bed) and then went out to source breakfast from the local supermarket. Had cereal back at the hostel and then headed up to the tourist info to rent bikes for a couple of hours. Mum was hilarious on her bike as she couldn’t quite manage to brake slowly, only with a big screech and a jolt, very amusing for me! Rode around the lake and then stopped to try the traditional cream cake of Bled, which was basically a vanillla slice but not as sweet. Returned the bikes and got some information for our buses tomorrow before heading around the lake on foot to walk up to a lookout point which was recommended to us by the hostel.

It was a short but steep climb in thongs and slip-ons. I injured my heel in Venice and while the cut is healing, the bruises are at their worst so sneakers are out at the moment! A fantastic view from the top, across Lake Bled and of its surrounding mountains. We were both very glad we made the effort and shared our lunch of half a banana each while we enjoyed the view. When we walked back down we continue our circuit of the lake on foot, checking out possible swimming spots for later.

We’d had enough of walking by then so headed back to the hostel to get changed so we could either hire paddle boards or go swimming. On our way along the lake we saw an enormous fish jump out of the water. We’d seen small ones jumping all day but this one was a monster, just under two feet long and really wide, it could only just flip itself up and back down. We decided to hire paddle boards from a local hotel and headed out on our knees first and then stood up when we felt more confident. It’s been a gorgeous day today and the lake was a lovely 25 degrees so we had to stop and get off for a few swims. On our way back in I had a spectacular fall off my board backwards which mum said was hilarious to watch. We were both in stiches for a while afterwards. The lovely guy who rented us the boards took some photos with my phone on the way in. Mum said she needed photographic evidence to prove I’d got her up on one! We both had a great time and headed home for showers before going to our favourite restaurant on the water where we’d reserved our ‘usual’ table earlier in the day. Mum had a prawn salad and I had a lovely pasta and we had our compulsory beer and spritzer to go with it. We were completely exhausted by this point so we headed back for an early night. 21 000 steps today.