Get charmed by Bled's picturesque calm

The postcard-pretty village of Bled in Slovenia isn't on most Indian itineraries, but that deserves to change

- Shrenik Avlani

Leisure travellers are usually in two kinds of mood when planning a trip to Europe—one is sticking to tried and tested classics and the other is the compulsive desire to go off the beaten path, wind down the road less travelled. Well, we are on the verge of striding into 2025 in a world under the influence of reels and videos on TikTok and Instagram, so the "road less travelled", in a true sense of the phrase, doesn't really exist anymore.

However, there are still a few places where travellers from India don't usually go. One such place is Bled, a picturesque village around a stunning lake in Slovenia where everything is picture-postcard-pretty.

Geographically, it is not that far from places that do feature on well-worn Indian travel itineraries. Bled is a convenient train ride, and an even quicker drive from places like Venice in Italy, Vienna and Salzburg in Austria, Munich in Germany and Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It also shares a border with Hungary, a country where a lot of Indian voyagers have been landing in recent times.

I wanted to go to Bled for the cheap thrill of visiting the only country in the world that has "love" in its name. Slovenia means "Land of the Slavic people", and I had seen some stunning pictures of the place on a friend's social media feed. I went to Slovenia for the first time in early October 2022 after I had wrecked myself for a week around Munich during the Oktoberfest. Since then, I have returned there every October, including this year.

On my first visit, I had booked two nights in Bled. I got there on a sunny autumn day and after checking into my dorm at Bled Hostel, I put on my trainers and went for a run around Lake Bled—the city's most popular attraction. While checking in, the person at the reception, which is in a dive bar called Pub Bled right under the hostel, had said it takes about two hours to walk the 6km ring around the lake and I wanted to see if this was true.