Thinking about heading to Lake Bled with kids? Congratulations on having a great idea, and hurry up and book it! Honestly, Chris and I have loved pretty much everywhere we’ve gone as a family, but there was something special about our 2 days at Lake Bled. It was the perfect combination of activities and relaxation for our family of four! 

In a lot of ways, during our 2 days at Lake Bled Chris and I probably looked and sounded a lot like we did when our kids were just born.

Lots of gasps of amazement over the tiniest things. Constant staring because we weren’t quite sure what we  were seeing was real. And, of course, taking about a million almost identical photographs because we just couldn’t help ourselves.

Obviously, we are also now sharing all those almost-the-same-but-different-to-us photos all over everywhere because again, we just can’t help it.

What can we say? It’s love.

What to see and do at Lake Bled with kids

In my last post, I talked about what drew us to Slovenia (our Lake Bled treehouse!) and where we stayed. Now, I want to talk about what else we did beyond sitting around in trees and laughing inappropriately during massages.

We’d really only done some vague research on what, specifically, we wanted to do at Lake Bled. For once though, this didn’t end up biting us in the ass because I still feel like we saw and did a good deal (though, as always, we have some things we need to return to see!).

1. Walk around Lake Bled 

After arriving at our treehouse too late Friday night to go see anything, our first order of business was to set off to see Lake Bled. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting, but it was more beautiful than I could have imagined. Somehow the water was turquoise? teal? some kind of fairy tale-ish color that didn’t seem real even as we looked at it.

Staff at the treehouse told us to expect it to take about 90 minutes to walk around the entire lake. Per usual, it ended up taking us much longer than that because we were dragging the kids, but unlike — ahem — certain other hikes, no one was suffering too much. I’d actually not even qualify it as a hike, it was more a stroll. It was especially helpful that there were excellent, well-maintained paths all around Lake Bled!

Our goal for this trip was to spend more time relaxing, and less time trying to see it all. This walk was great because we frequently stopped to rest, stick our feet in the water or look at the fish you could see everywhere in the crazy clear water.

We also saw a whole bunch of ducks, which inspired this weird pair of moments from our little Fi. When she first saw a solo duck, she said she wished she could grab him. We asked what she do with him if she caught him and her answer was “eat him.” An hour later, we saw a duck family with seven ducklings (dubbed Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny) and she literally cried over how cute they were. Just recording this one for posterity, here.

We spent probably three or four hours walking around Lake Bled, but that included two stops for lunch, dessert and drinks at various points along the way.

2. Wade into Lake Bled

On our walk, we also stopped at a couple of the lake’s swimming spots. In some spots, this was just some stairs where people could walk into the water. In others, there were pebbly beaches and piers where you could jump in. (There were also some trees with swings to fly into the water; we saw one teenager crash back into the tree it was attached to instead after chickening out of dropping).

If you are going, I’d recommend bringing some water shoes because the pebbles don’t feel great on tender feet. But definitely go in — the water chilly, but amazingly clear! We weren’t wearing our bathing suits on this walk, but Fi kept asking if she could just go in the water naked.

3. Try summer sledding at Straza Bled

Riding the summer toboggan at Straza Bled was easily the kids’ favorite activity on this trip, and probably Chris’ too! It would likely have been mine if I didn’t have a panic attack on the chair lift up there. Turns out, I’m not getting over my fear of heights to the extent that I thought I was.

Anyway, this thing — I’ve heard it called summer sledding or alpine slide, and I have no idea what the proper name is — was intense and super fun! We actually went up there having only seen it from a distance and not knowing whether the kids would be old enough to go, as the website hadn’t been super helpful. To our surprise, we found out that pretty much anyone can go, but if they are under 8 they have to ride with a parent. Sold.

I thought that at least one of the kids would freak out when we got to the top, because it was quite steep. Nope. Then I was sure Owen (riding with me) would get scared and want to slow down. Also a NOPE.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows Fiona that she spent the entire ride (she went with Chris) laughing hysterically and wanting to go faster. The two of them were FLYING, clocked in at least 10 km faster than Owen and I.

There were several other “adventure” activities at this place, including tubing down a slide onto a jump and literally jumping off a tower onto a big cushion. Fi was too young for those though, so we opted to skip them altogether so she wouldn’t be devastated.

4. Visit Bled Castle

Castles perched on top of tall cliffs seem to be a “thing” for us thing year (remember Stirling and Edinburgh?) and Lake Bled was no exception. We took a quick visit to Castle Bled,  which dates back to 1004.

We didn’t think the inside of the castle was too exciting (though there was a restaurant that looked nice!) but the views were what made it worth a visit.

5. Take a bike ride around the lake

This is an activity that Chris and I were hoping to do as a family, but unfortunately it didn’t work out (despite the staff at our hotel’s best efforts). We haven’t had a place to teach Owen to ride a bike without training wheels, and we couldn’t get our hands on a tagalong bike for him. Thus, a morning bike ride was a Daddy and Fiona adventure. They circled the lake, which is surrounded by a great path. All of Slovenia seemed to be really bike-friendly, which was just another thing we loved about it.

6. Feed the ducks (and swans, and fish)

Owen’s consolation prize for missing the bike ride (other than reading Harry Potter in the spider web together), was to swipe some bread from breakfast and go feed the fish at Lake Bled. We’d seen tons of shockingly large fish right near the shore, so I figured they’d be eager for a snack. We were wrong on that score (maybe they only want meat?!) but we had fun feeding the ducks and then our unexpected guest, Louis the swan.

7. Try the Bled Cream Cake

It seemed like just about every restaurant we stopped in claimed to have the “original” Bled Cream Cake, so naturally we had to give it a whirl. I can’t say which one was the real original, but we liked both of the cakes we tried. (Well, all except Owen. But he doesn’t like anything, so take that with a grain of salt.)

If a place is known for a certain dish, it is basically your duty as a tourist to try it, right? Except when that dish is haggis. I draw the line at haggis. (Chris doesn’t though!). Get a less gross-sounding national dish, Scotland.

Lake Bled with kids: what we missed

If you have already been to Lake Bled, you’ve probably noticed one glaring omission from our list of activities: a boat ride to Bled Island.

We did intend to ride a boat to the island straight off the bat, but didn’t realize we didn’t have enough cash. Then, by the time we’d made it all the way around the lake (the only ATM being back in town!), we were tired and just eager for snacks and downtime. The next day, other plans trumped the boat ride. That said, it is probably the first thing we’ll do when we return to Lake Bled with kids!

 You can either hire someone with a pletna boat to take you to the island in the middle of the lake, or you can rent a boat and row yourself out there. Either looks like it would be fun! Once you get to Bled Island, you want to make your way to the Church of the Mother of God, climb the 99 stairs and ring the bell. If you are newlyweds, the groom is supposed to carry his bride up all 99 stairs for good luck.

There were a ton of other activities I think would be amazing — fishing and horseback riding are two right off the top of my head — but we felt we hit most of the highlights during our 2 days at Lake Bled.

If you are planning a trip to Lake Bled with kids:

Two days is definitely the minimum that I would shoot for! With kids in tow, three days would even be better. It is a small place and you can see a lot in a short time, but I’d suggest trying to leave lots of room for relaxation. We arrived late on a Friday night and left mid-Sunday afternoon, but we could have happily spent twice as long.

Getting there: Lake Bled is only 45 minutes from the capital city of Ljubljana, which has an international airport. However, since decent flights there from Catania were pretty much nonexistent, we opted to fly to Venice and drive the 2 hours and 45 minutes to our resort. Flying into Trieste, Itay, would put you even closer.

Where to stay: We saw plenty of lovely-looking hotels and bed-and-breakfasts all over the place, but if you want to try something different I suggest giving the Garden Village Bled treehouses or glamping a try!

Have you been to Lake Bled with kids (or without?) What did you think of it?