Bled Stories Davy Sims

This is a classic view of Bled Castle (above) near Vila Prešeren one of the best restaurants and hotels in Bled.
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When I went to speak to Lea Ferjan from Bled Castle, it was September 2018. The day was warm for the time of year – there was a hint of autumn and the colours are about to change.
Bled Castle has been there for over 1000 years. Below the cliff – the swimming area. A little closer there were pletna idling in the sun and the swans and ducks near where at the height of the summer the place where the water lilies bloom.
Lea Ferjan was born in Bled. She walks from her home along the lake shore every day to her office – sometimes in the Castle, sometimes at Festival Hall.



And she tells me there are two names for the people who live here. Those who were born here have one name, those who moved here have another.
The island over in the distance, but there are a few rain clouds were gathering and the forecast for the rest of the day was showers. To the Festival Hall to see Lea at the Cultural Institute offices.







This is Bled Stories. I’m Davy Sims – I wrote Firsthand Guide to Bled and when I’m lucky get to live here, sometimes for months at a time.
This is a classic view of Bled Castle (above) near Vila Prešeren one of the best restaurants and hotels in Bled.






There are more Bled Stories – you can find them here on the web site and you can subscribe on iTunes.
The Firsthand Guide to Bled 2018 is no longer available as a book or for Kindle. It is not yet completly out of date and you can download a PDF free. 
-[DOWNLOAD HERE]-
Or if you prefer read each chapter online from here.













 





The Music



The theme music is Rate Sheet by Blue Dot Sessions from the Free Music Archive



 





The Bled Stories Podcast is a Firsthand Guides Production.

The history of Bled’s Rowing Club reflects the history of not just Bled town, but Slovenia itself. There have been organised rowing competitions here since at least the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.



There were organised rowing competitions during the The State of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1918). Competitions continued through The Kingdom of Yugoslavia (until 1941). During the Yugoslav communist era (1945 to 1992), rowing as a competitive sport was first taken seriously. Now today Slovenia is an independent country and the rowing club is attracting, athletes from around the world.

For tourists, the lake is a place for fun and recreation. But competitive rowers, come throughout year and from early spring you’ll see events from youth programmes right up to Olympic level.

On this episode of Bled Stories, the Bled Rowing Club.

 
Hear more Bled Stories podcast episodes here on this website, or subscribe on iTunes. 
Jernej Slivnik is Secretary General of the Slovenian Rowing Federation and Co-Director of the Bled Rowing Organising Committee and my guide through the history of the club. 

Rowing is Jernej’s passion. It’s a family commitment. Indeed, his father was one of the leading lights who developed the Bled rowing team as serious Olympic competitors. And for Jernej, rowing is a way of life.

The Bled Rowing Centre is at Župančičeva ulica 9 (Phone: +386 40 220 886). On regatta day, on any competition day there is a busy, exciting atmosphere around the clubhouse – dozens and dozens of trailers stacked with boats can be seen parked on every available square metre in and around the bay. The main club building is historic, and the boathouse itself was built about 60 years ago.

It was from that time Bled rowers began their path to Olympic success.

Even when there are no events on, and especially on a sunny day, the Rowing Centre can be busy, but it is open to the public; the bar, the terrace café and the restaurant.

Jernej is just one of the people interviewed in the Standard and Special editions of Firsthand Guide to Bled Slovenia 2018. You can also read about Domen from Triglav Adventures, the Mayor Janez Fajfar, Lea Ferjan from Bled Castle and others.

 

The Firsthand Guide to Bled 2018 is no longer available as a book or for Kindle. It is not yet completly out of date and you can download a PDF free. 
-[DOWNLOAD HERE]-
The Music

The theme music is Rate Sheet by Blue Dot Sessions from the Free Music Archive

The Bled Stories Podcast is a Firsthand Guides Production.

Just southwest of the centre of Bled, I’m guessing around Planinska Cesta, there is a small group of houses. It could be described as a hamlet, a little community. Dawn my wife went for a walk around that way one day and she told me she saw a board explaining the history of this part of Bled. Once there were vines growing on these slopes, it said.

[Find more episodes at the Bled Stories Podcast index]

There isn’t a winery in Bled any more – I’m not sure if there ever was. But there are places in the town to taste and enjoy wines from Slovenia and at least two wine tasting events held every week during the season.

This time on Bled Stories, Slovenian wine and wine tasting. And as a bonus, suggestions for the best bars and wine bars in Ljubljana from a young man about town who is in the know.



It often comes as a surprise to first time visitors to Slovenia that this is a wine growing country. And sometimes it comes as an even bigger surprise to find out how good the wine is. “If it’s so good, why can’t I pick up a bottle in my local wine shop?” is a reasonable question. Well, it is estimated that only 6% is exported. The other 94% is consumed at home.

 
 
 
Wine by Numbers
Remember there are only 2 million people in Slovenia. Yet there are

3 wine-growing regions
14 wine-growing districts
52 vine varieties
22,300 hectares of vineyards About 1 % of the whole country
and the 28,000 wineries, produce about 80 million litres every year.

Slovenians like wine – but they hold on to it.
The Wine Growing Areas
The three main wine growing areas can also be day trips from Bled. Although personally I’d prefer to spend two or three days in any of them.
Podravia
The Drava region - bordering Croatia and Hungary in the east of Slovenia is the largest area. You can get there by train or bus and if you are driving it’s just a couple of hours away. On the way you are likely to pass Laško where the beer come from.
Posavska
The neighbouring Lower Sava Wine-growing region,  is the only one of the three that produces more red wine than white, but not by much.
Primorska
The Goriška brda and Koper districts is probably the two best known and Vipava valley is a beautiful place. Travel from Alpine Bled to Mediterranean Koper and you might wonder about being in the same country.


Wine Tasting in Bled and Ljubljana
Jani Pravdič is a young man about town. He’s not from Bled, but from a little place near Celje. He began working in tourism out of college when he wanted to turn his passion – partying into a business. He organises the wine tasting in Bled and Ljubljana where the emphasis is put on having fun and learning the wine basics with trained sommeliers, while not being too serious.

And while you can buy excellent Slovenian wine in the supermarkets, there are four specialist shops I know of. In the Shopping Centre, Trgovina Vino Bled is on the 1st floor. In the main shopping area Zakladi Slovenije / Treasures of Slovenia has a wine collection.

My own favourite is Zdravljica wine bar where I will happily sit out in the sun in the afternoon, or inside at the big communal table in the evening with a bowl of nibbles and glass from their collection. You can taste before you buy.
Of course, Bled Castle has its wine cellar and selection, and their experts on hand to advise you. If you are drinking there, the bottle might be opened for you by a man wielding a sabre. The vine growing at the Castle is a cutting from the vine in Maribor – the oldest in the world.

The best time to visit to Slovenia to taste wine in around the beginning on November ---- St Martin’s Day. The patron saint of winemaking is celebrated around the country. Details of events in the book.

And Fridays in Ljubljana at Open Kitchen in addition to trying food from the stalls, there are often Slovenian wine and beer makers showing off their products.

 
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The hop on hop off bus is back on the roads again in July and August 2018 [details here www.radolca.si/en/activities-and…ourist-bus/friday]. Starting at Bled and Radovljica taking a different route every day into the small towns and villages where you might not otherwise think about going.

You can hop on anywhere along the route, hop off when you are tempted, pick up the next bus later in the day, go to another place … all day. There are beautiful places to see, walks to take and – here’s my favourite – lunches to eat.

And one cold November morning, I took a bus to Tržič.
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Bled is a good from where you can set off to visit other places;

Radol’ca is a short bus ride, as is Kranj
Škofja Loka takes a little longer but you should really try to see it
By train you can get to Nova Goriza (Slovenia), Gorizia (Italy) and Villach (in Austria)
Tržič and other parts of Upper Carniola (Slovene: Gorenjska) are accessible by bus and during the summer the Hop on Hop off bus.

You don’t have to wait until the Hop on Hop off bus is in operation, of course. I took two busses to Tržič on cold November morning.

My first stop in Paradiž was the Germovka Forge [www.visit-trzic.com/en/attractions/…ovka-forge.html]. It’s now an historic exhibit rather than a working forge. Paradiž sounds like an odd name – Paradise? There are a couple of places with that name in Slovenia – and in Croatia, too. It doesn’t translate as Paradise, though. And while this is a pretty place now, the area had been a centre of for iron work since the 14th century. As in Kropa about 20 kms away (and another place to visit on a day trip, by the way), Iron work 500 years ago was hot and smoky, dangerous and closer to hades than paradise.

Apart from iron, leather, wood, and textile industries were important to the town’s economy.

This is what I do – no plan, no maps. stumble from find to find, sighting to sighting. I suppose if I had thought about what I wanted to achieve in the town, I might have walked down fewer dead ends. But there is an excitement in the unexpected.

There is a reason why the buildings in the old town are all from around the mid-1800s. There was a massive fire in the town in 1811 which destroyed almost the whole town. The town centre of has been protected as a cultural heritage site since 1985.

There are three main sections to the museum, the newest permanent exhibition is about the life of the tanners of Tržič. Then there is the Slovenian skiing museum. And the shoe making section of the Museum [www.visit-trzic.com/en/attractions/…zic-museum.html].

I had an excellent pizza in Pizzerija Dolhar [www.malcajt.com/gorenjska/trzic/p…a-pod-gradom.html].

If during the summer you take the hop on hop off bus it is definitely a place to go. If the bus isn’t running, I left Bled and connected in Radovljica.

 

The Firsthand Guide to Bled 2018 is no longer available as a book or for Kindle. It is not yet completly out of date and you can download a PDF free. 
-[DOWNLOAD HERE]-
The Music:
The main theme is Blue Dot Session – Rate Sheet freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot…all/Rate_Sheet
Walking music was Adjunct by Silicon Transmitter freemusicarchive.org/music/Silicon_…Sector/Adjunct
Talking about Firsthand Guide to Bled music was Brother Christmas by Lemon Yellow Hayes
freemusicarchive.org/music/Lemon_Ye…ther_Christmas

The Bled Stories Podcast is a Firsthand Guides Production.

Adventure is just a moment away every day of the week
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Address: Ljubljanska cesta 1, 4260 Bled, Slovenia
Phone: +386 41 683 184
Web: www.3glav.com/

Walk up the hill from Bled’s town centre on the main road. You are heading towards the Post Office and the public library. You will pass the Okarina restaurant where Paul McCartney once had dinner – vegetarian of course. Okarina is noted for its vegetarian cuisine. Right opposite there is an old green wooden building. Outside there’s a basket which at another time would have been tethered to a balloon floating above the lake and the castle. There are bicycles for hire. The little green building is filled with the stuff of adventures. It attracts your attention because it looks a little out of place, perhaps a little out of time. It belongs here, but did it come from somewhere else? There is nothing like it in Bled.

Here you will meet Domen Kalajžič – Founder of 3glav Adventures who runs 3glav Adventures. His family have owned the little building for over 100 years. As you will hear, it's not from Bled but was moved here by Domen's grandfather.

A history of the humble Green Shop
A hundred years ago it was a tailor’s shop belonging to the King’s tailor. The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was founded in 1918 and the royal family had a summer palace where Vila Bled is situated. The little green shack is the place where the tailor’s great grandson Domen Kalajžič runs 3glav Adventures.
3glav (or Triglav) is named after the highest mountain in Slovenia. You can see its peaks from Bled if you look to the west.

“It was at the old Bled Lesce train station before the first world war.” Domen tells me. “My great-grandfather bought the ticket office when they built the proper brick train station in Lesce. He bought the hut and somehow transported it to Bled and put it where 3glav Adventures office now is. The building where it stands now protected. It is more than 200 years old and has been in Domen’s family for 100 years.”

The humble green wooden structure is as much part of Bled’s history as any palace. It was passed from generation to generation. “Four or five generations now. Usually the same business passes from one generation to another, but this little green hut has served our family for totally different types of businesses in each generation.” First a tailor’s, then Domen’s mother ran a herbal pharmacy. Now an adventure business.

Domen and his family
Domen is the first generation of adventurers. Three years after Slovenia became an independent nation in 1991, Domen began travelling. It was a gap year between high school and university. “It was the new age of back packing – the pioneering years. Economically it was pretty hard. Air tickets were a lot more expensive. I had travelled before, but this was my first serious trip.”

Aged 18, free for four or five months, Domen first headed south to Australia and New Zealand. It was the beginning of a way of life. Every year since then he has spent four or five months travelling.

That’s where he got the travel bug, but the idea for running a tourist adventure business had not even begun to form in his mind. Domen’s focus was still on travel. When he graduated from university in 1999 with a degree in Information Technology & Management, the world was his to explore and he spent a whole year discovering it.
Yet, there were no thoughts about starting a tourism business. He settled in America for three years, "I was in California from 2000 to 2003 running a small computer company named Brainworks. Of course, in my free time I was exploring Santa Monica mountains and other outdoor areas every weekend by mountain bike or hiking.

"I know North America pretty well and I keep returning every year since 1996 doing local road trips and hiking in the less known regions. The great outdoors there are magnificent, on contrary of what ou

A "museum" of interactivity and science
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There's more to Bled than a walk around the lake. Without going too far you can find a place where scientific experimentation and interacting with the exhibits is enormous fun. The Antimuseum.

Walk along the road out of Bled toward the highway, and Lesce. Go past Hotel Krim towards Union then on. You pass the police station and the new Mercator. Then on to the Infocentre building and inside that you will the Antimuseum Pysland – that’s phys as in physics. But do make an appointment.

But there is a Fizz as in excitement there too.



Kristina Špec from the AntiMuseum welcomed me and guided me through the exhibits. Most of what’s on display almost defies description. You’re going to hear me say “Ohhh wow!” many times during this episode. Best thing you can do is go see for yourself.

Kristina Špec from the AntiMuseum in Bled – their website is antimuseum.org

You can see some videos and photos on their Facebook site www.facebook.com/antimuseum

Images courtesy of AntiMuseum's Facebook page.



 

The Firsthand Guide to Bled 2018 is no longer available as a book or for Kindle. It is not yet completly out of date and you can download a PDF free. 
-[DOWNLOAD HERE]-
The Music

The theme music is Rate Sheet by Blue Dot Sessions from the Free Music Archive

The Bled Stories Podcast is a Firsthand Guides Production.