For a place that had never before been on my travel radar, it's now near the top of my list, thanks to its stunning vineyards, beaches, mountains, and cities all rolled into one neat package. My inn was a five-minute walk away, but there was no one in sight.
So there I was, on a lime-green mountain plateau in one of the remotest parts of ex-Yugoslavia. We had chosen Slovenia because it seemed to us a sort of one-stop Europe. Hidden in plain sight between Italy, Austria, and the ever more fashionable resorts of Croatia, it includes an opening onto the Mediterranean and a chunk of the Alps.
It packs an abundance of contrasting landscapes and cultures into a small space. Our trip began with a brief hop from Paris to Ljubljanaโone hour and forty-five minutes on the planeโand thirty minutes by cab to Lake Bled. And yet the architecture of the Topliceโand of many of the hotels next to itโput me in mind of East German housing projects: cubical, characterless, cavernous.
We tossed our suitcases onto the bed unopened, left our marble bath untouched, and scurried past the doormen to the promenade path around the lake. In an instant, we were outnumbered by swans bustling to and fro among the tulip beds. An oarsman threw me a smile as a swan waddled into his ornately carved gondola. And what a lake it is: Off-limits to motorized craft, it sparkles like a spotless mirror. Pines, firs, and willows hug its shores all around; only a single now snowless ski slope breaks the charmed green circle.
Leaving the swans behind, we poked our way up a forest trail that climbed slowly to Bled Castle. Daisies pushed up between the irregular stones, and telescopes beckoned. I straddled the castle wall instead and unnerved an elderly French tourist by leaning far out over the waters below. Perhaps the most otherworldly detail of Lake Bled is the island that sits, like a dollop of fresh whipped cream, on its glazed surface.
