Day 5: Adventures in Bled

Unlike the rest of the week, the tour had no planned activities so we were free to do whatever we wanted!

I woke up super early (not by choice haha) so I had breakfast and then went for a walk. I decided to walk up to Bled Castle, up the top of 130 metre cliff from the shores of Lake Bled. Walking through the town at 8am there was nobody around and the water on the lake was so still.

After a steep climb up the hill I reached the top of the castle. The castle was first mentioned in writing in 1011 and has been developed and rebuilt after multiple earthquakes since then. Today the castle infrastructure dates from the 15th century. There was a really interesting museum that detailed the history of the entire Bled area and the development of the tourism industry in Bled. They also had a print shop which uses a replicate machine from the 1500's the print souvenirs and a castle forge which represents the strong iron mining history of the area. After looking around the castle, I decided to try the famous Bled cake outside the castle which offered

spectacular views over the lake. The cake tasted like a vanilla slice but had a lot more cream and made me feel sick so I'm glad I've tried it, but definitely don't want to eat it again!

Afterwards I headed back down the hill to St Martin's church which had beautiful paintings and stain glass windows. There were also organists practising a duet and it sounded incredible in the church so I stayed and listened for a while.

After lunch I then went and met up with my Ferata tour guide, Grega, and we drove to Mojstrana. I really had no idea what to expect because at the adventure agency they had pretty much said something about a mountain, ropes and a harness and I'd said I'll do it! I wanted to try it because it is something I had never heard of before. As it turns out, Ferata is a type of climbing found in the Alps using steel cable to nearly vertically ascend a mountain. The mountain we climbed was 250 metres and a class C (difficult). I was the only participant on the trip. It was a really fantastic

experience and I managed to not freak out too much about being up to 249 metres above ground on the face of a cliff! Hopefully this means I have overcome my fear of heights! The guide was very helpful with the climbing and also very knowledgeable about the area as he had lived in the village for 35 years (his house was right near the base of the mountain!). At the top we took in the views before walking down the other side of the mountain which was not quite as steep as our ascent!

After relaxing for a while and eating a dinner of bread, an apple and some chocolate biscuits (oops!), we went and had a drink overlooking the lake and then walked hope with the view of the sun setting over the castle.

*Photos of Ferata to come still*