I prise myself out of bed and drag my sorry ass, kicking and screaming along the riverside, to write up my daily blog. I find a serene spot overlooking the riverside and order a cappuccino with my limited Slovenian (basically ordering in English with a slightly dodgy Balkan accent).
About an hour later, suitably refreshed and buzzing from the caffeine, I cheerfully trundle through Llubijiana old town, to the bus station - my trusty backpack strapped to my back (I'm sure there's a song in there somewhere).
I have plenty of time to get my bus ticket and zig zag through the obstacle course of travellers and board my bus to Bled. The journey has some pretty gorgeous scenery and for the most part I have two seats to myself to manspread.
After a few stops, a group of Slovenian students get on, chatting loudly and raucously laughing to themselves, in a bizarre hybrid of Slovenian and English (let's call it Slovenglish for arguments sake). I can't help but notice that one of them has an impressively large mouth and equally large teeth, rather like a shark.
I'm delighted when Sharkie and the mean girls (band name) leave a couple of stops later and peace is finally restored, reverting back to manspreading over my two seats to my heart's content.
On arrival into Bled, the hostel is a short 5 minute walk up the road and I'm reunited with the lovely Maya from the last hostel. I get chatting to a nice Aussie called Sam in the lobby and, with Maya in tow, we head off out for a coffee to check out the lake.
The three amigos (as we shall now be referred to) get ingredients for a stir fry and I cook us up a delicious slap up supper of stir fry and rice, served with several generous servings of 3 EUR red wine from a plastic bottle. As the wine flows we muse about the meanings of life, whilst I interrogate poor Maya about what it's like to be an Airbnb host.
Maya has kindly provided a delicious looking cake, topped with poppy seeds, purchased from the local supermarket. Sadly the cake has the consistency of rolled sawdust and seems to sap every drop of moisture in my mouth.
Suitably merry and bellies full, we head downstairs to the hostel bar (I'm still in my PJ bottoms and flip flops but can pull off the hipster look). After far too many beers at a pub in town, and after chatting shite to strangers, I decide to call it a night - getting hopelessly lost on the way home (thankfully not ending up dead in the lake). Using the castle and lake to orienteer myself, I'm home in about 20 minutes and impress myself by managing to brush my teeth and not wake anyone up.
The somewhat optimistic plans of being up to meet my amigos at 10am are wrecked as I opt for a lay in instead. I'm both equally enticed and deterred my getting out of bed - Maya has voice noted me a 'get up out of bed song' and a threatened me with another slice of stale poppy cake (somehow my feet have gained a strange sense of momentum).
We have a fourth amigo now, Guilem (from France) and we spend the morning traversing the Lake Bled.
Between admiring the church on the island and all the itty bitty fishies in the lake, we stop for a coffee at a cute cafe by the lakeside. It turns out Bled Cake and coffee is a random cure for a stinking hangover (who'd have known). We decide that Bled Cake is just a vanilla finger on a croissant base but I'll take that over the poppy cake any day (sorry Maya).
It's a rather strenuous hungover climb to the viewpoint but I'm sure you'll agree from the photos it was worth it. On the climb down a random Chinese woman is screeching loudly to a friend/family member who seems to be miles away (I secretly hope she slips down the windy path to the viewpoint and suffers an injury).
