Slovenia, Italy & Serbia ‘25

During fall break, I was in seven different countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, and Serbia. After my trip to Cyprus visiting family, I headed to Lake Bled, Slovenia. With the rental car, I was able to get to some incredible spots in Triglav National Park.

First was an early evening hike up a viewpoint of Lake Bled, a short walk from my hotel.

My hotel: Hotel Triglav – Highly recommend! It was on the non-busy side of Lake Bled with easy lake access.

First full day, I found a couple amazing hikes. First was hands down my favorite fall hike ever: Gozd Martuljek.

Lake Jasna:

Podkoren

To get to the other side of the National Park, I crossed the border into Italy. This was also just a short distance from the border with Austria.

Laghi di Fusine, Italy

Back into Slovenia for a cliff-edge hike up Boka Waterfall

Told you it was along the cliff-edge!

Drove along down the Soča River

At night, I got back in time for a night shot of Lake Bled.

Woke up the next morning to an amazing view of the lake out my hotel’s dining room window:

Went for a hike up to the viewpoint again. It was a rain forecasted day, and I was tired from the hiking the day before, so I kept it pretty relaxed around Lake Bled and then an afternoon at the hotel pool and spa.

Couldn’t take these boats out because the owner said a storm was coming in.

Since the boat rentals weren’t panning out for me, I headed towards Vintgar Gorge. But the parking lot was closed, and I found out they were closing early for the day too, due to the impending weather. So I decided to drive somewhere else. On the way, I passed by my fourth boat rental place and noticed they were operating! I stopped, parked, and took the row boat out to the island to explore before the rain began to fall. I made it to the top of the bell tower at exactly noon, so that was cool to watch.

Since the rain was falling, I headed into Bled Castle to explore the grounds.

Amazing view off the castle terrace, complete with medieval-themed music.

A last day morning run around Lake Bled before heading off to Vintgar Gorge.

And on the trek to the visitor’s center, I was treated to a beautiful view of the valley. (Disregard the chainsaw in the background)

I flew back towards Bulgaria in the afternoon, but not without a one night stopover in Belgrade, Serbia. I had a kind AirBnB host who gave me some great recs of places to see in the city. His place was just around the corner from the Main street in town, near yes, another castle. 🙂