Bled

We leave Ljubljana in the morning and you're at the lake inside the hour. A pletna boat — the flat wooden gondola unique to Bled, rowed standing up, the way it's been done for generations — carries you out to the island church, and the climb up to Bled Castle on its cliff gives you the view every postcard of Slovenia borrows. The water changes colour as the light moves, turquoise at midday and almost black-green by late afternoon. There's time to sit by the water with a slice of kremšnita, the custard-and-cream cake Bled invented and still guards jealously, before we start back. If you'd rather walk the lakeshore path instead of the boat, or skip the castle for more time at the water, just say so when we confirm — the day moves around you, not the other way round.

up to 5 h and 150 km