Sights in Julian Alps
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Lake Bled
Lake Bled is not a very large body of water - it measures only 2km by 1380m - and the second-best way to see it is from the shore. A walk around the lake (6km) shouldn't take but a couple of hours at the most, including the short (but steep) climb to the brilliant Osojnica viewing point. Along the way, you'll pass linden, chestnut and willow trees hanging over the water, boat slips, wooden walkways, anglers, the start of several hikes and a couple of interesting sights.
On the south shore of Lake Bled you'll pass through the hamlet of Mlino, then leave the main road for a path that passes beneath the grand edifice of the Hotel Vila Bled. Around the far end of the lake, be…
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Bled Castle
Perched atop a steep cliff more than 100m above the lake, Bled Castle is how most people imagine a medieval fortress to be - with towers, ramparts, moats and a terrace offering magnificent views on a clear day. The castle, which is built on two levels, dates back to the 11th century (although most of what stands here now is from the 16th century) and for 800 years was the seat of the Bishops of Brixen.
The baroque southern wing houses a museum collection that traces the history of Lake Bled and its settlements from the Bronze Age to the mid-19th century. None of the furniture is original to the castle, but it helps give you an idea of how the leisured class lived in the M…
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Church of St John the Baptist
The Church of St John the Baptist, on the northern side of the Sava Bohinjka just across the stone bridge, is what every medieval church should be: small, on a reflective lake and full of exquisite frescoes. It is the most beautiful and evocative church in all of Slovenia, with the possible exception of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Hrastovlje in Primorska. Unfortunately it was under renovation at the time of research.
The nave of the church is Romanesque, but the Gothic presbytery dates from about 1440. A large portion of the latter's walls, ceilings and arches are covered with 15th- and 16th-century frescoes. As you face the arch from the nave, look for the frescoes…
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Liznjek House
One of the very few sights in Kranjska Gora, the endearing late-18th-century Liznjek House contains quite a good collection of household objects and furnishings peculiar to this area of Gorenjska. Among the various exhibits here are some excellent examples of trousseau chests covered in folk paintings, some 19th-century icons painted on glass and a collection of linen tablecloths (the valley was famed for its flax and its weaving).
Antique carriages and a sledge are kept in the massive barn out the back, which once housed food stores as well as pigs and sheep. The stable reserved for cows below the main building now contains a memorial room dedicated to the life and work …
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Alpine Dairy Museum
The Alpine Dairy Museum in Stara Fužina, about 1.5km north of Ribčev Laz, has a small collection related to alpine dairy farming in the Bohinj Valley, once the most important such centre in Slovenia. Until the late 1950s large quantities of cheese were still being made on 28 highland pastures, but a modern dairy in nearby Srednja Vas does it all now.
The four rooms of the museum - a cheese dairy itself once upon a time - contain a mock-up of a mid-19th-century herder's cottage, fascinating old photographs, cheese presses, wooden butter moulds, copper rennet vats, enormous snowshoes and sledges, and wonderful hand-carved crooks.
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Savica Waterfall
One of the reasons people come to Bohinj is to hike to the magnificent Savica Waterfall , which cuts deep into a gorge 60m below.
The waterfall, the source of Slovenia's longest and mightiest river, is 4km from the Hotel Zlatorog in Ukanc and can be reached by footpath from there. Cars (and the bus in summer) continue via a paved road to a car park beside the Savica restaurant, from which it's a 20-minute walk up 510 steps and over rapids and streams to the falls.
The falls are among the most impressive sights in the Julian Alps, especially after a heavy rain, but bring something waterproof or you may be soaked by the spray.
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Parish Church of St Martin
You can reach Bled Castle on foot via one of three trails signposted 'Grad'. The first trail starts from the car park behind the Bledec Hostel; the second is a tortuous path up from the Castle Baths; and the third starts just north of the neo-Gothic Parish Church of St Martin . This church was designed by Friedrich von Schmidt in 1905, who also did the city hall and Votive Church in Vienna. Outside there's a small shrine designed by Jože Plečnik.
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Church of the Assumption
The baroque Church of the Assumption on Bled Island, dating from the 17th century, contains some fresco fragments from the 14th century, a large gold altar and, under the floor of the nave, part of the apse of a pre-Romanesque chapel, the only one in Slovenia. Outside is a 15th-century belfry with a 'wishing bell' that visitors can ring if they want to ask a favour. Naturally everyone and their grandmother does it - again and again and again.
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Oplen House
Oplen House, is a typical old peasant's cottage with a chimneyless 'smoke kitchen' that has been turned into a museum focusing on the domestic life of peasants in the Bohinj area at the turn of the 20th century. But Studor's real claim to fame is its many toplarji, the double-linked hayracks with barns or storage areas at the top. Look for the ones at the entrance to the village; they date from the 18th and 19th centuries.
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Bled Island
The tiny, tear-shaped Bled Island, the only true island in Slovenia, has been the site of a Christian church since the 9th century. But excavations have shown that the early Slavs worshipped at a pagan temple here at least a century before that.
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Triglav Museum Collection
In Mojstrana, the starting point for the northern approaches to Triglav, the Triglav Museum Collection, housed in an old inn, shows the history of mountaineering in Slovenia.
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