Lake Bled

Bled is the postcard that turned out to be real: a glacial lake the colour of a peacock's neck, an island with a church on it and ninety-nine steps up to the church, a castle on a cliff a hundred and thirty metres above the water, and the Julian Alps behind everything with the Triglav, the three-headed mountain on the national flag, at the top of them. The boats that row you to the island are pletnas, flat-bottomed and canopied, and the men who row them inherit the licence; the bell in the church grants wishes to those who ring it; and the cake, the kremšnita, a slab of custard and cream between two crisp sheets, was invented at the Park Hotel in 1953 and has been eaten twelve million times since.

The traveller walks the six kilometres around the lake first, early, when the water is glass and the castle is lit from the east; takes a pletna to the island, climbs the steps, rings the bell, and comes back; climbs to the castle for the view that appears on the postcards, and the little museum and the wine cellar; eats the kremšnita on a terrace facing the water; climbs Ojstrica or Mala Osojnica, the viewpoints on the south-west shore, for the photograph everyone takes; and, with a second day, walks the boardwalks of the Vintgar gorge and drives to Bohinj, Bled's wilder, quieter sister, at the foot of the Triglav.

The Guide's honesty: Bled is small, famous and near a motorway, and July and August fill it to the shore — the island queue, the parking, the coaches from Ljubljana and Venice — so come in June or September, or stay two nights and own the mornings; the pletna is a fixed price and worth it once, and the rowboats you row yourself are cheaper and slower and lovelier; the lake is swimmable and warm by July, from the grass beaches at the west end; the castle entry is not cheap and the view from the free path below is nearly the same; and Bohinj, twenty-six kilometres on, is where Slovenians go when Bled is full — follow them.