Vintgar Gorge & Lake Bled ~ Slovenia Day 1

We woke to much cooler temperatures this morning, which was wonderful! While having tea/coffee on the patio, a hot air balloon went by.

We decided to have one home-base for our stay in the Julian Alps, and chose Lake Bled, and will be here a week. We spent today here, in Lake Bled, doing two different walks. 

First we went to Vintgar Gorge - about 10 minutes away by car. We purchased tickets online yesterday and had to select our entry time, so our best-guess was 9:00am - 9:20am. (All slots were a 20-minute range; 10€ per person, plus 10€ for parking.) We arrived at Vintgar Gorge a bit early, and walked to the entrance expecting that we would be allowed in early - nope.

Ironically, if we did not purchase our tickets online - as suggested - then we could have purchased tickets when we got there for the time we got there, and walked right in - hmmmm. 😐

Anyway....promptly at 9am, everyone with a 9:00am  9:20am ticket was allowed into the gorge, and were given hard hats, which was just dang silly.

The walk was interesting and the water very clear.

Once done with the gorge part of the walk - and after the silly hardhats were given back - we continued the loop through the "River of Trees" which started out as walking through someone's farmland...

...along a path.....

...past some cows....

....who enjoy very nice views.....

....into the woods...

....eventually back to our car. The entire walk took 90 minutes. 

We stopped at the local food store for supplies,  stopped at the Airbnb for a bit, and then walked to the lake itself, about a 20 minute walk. We enjoyed a nice late lunch, then took the 6km (4 mile) walk around the lake, enjoying the views.....

Then it was back to our Airbnb for a quiet rest of the day.