Lake Bohinj

Lake Bohinj is the quieter, wilder sister of Bled: a long glacial lake lying in a deep basin of the Julian Alps, with no island church and no castle on a cliff, just water, forest and limestone walls rising almost straight from the shore. The lake is about 4.2 km long and up to 1 km wide, at an elevation of 526 metres, held in place by a moraine left by the retreating glacier. The water is cold and astonishingly clear, with an average depth of around 30 metres and a maximum of 45, and its colour changes with the hour - green and glassy in the morning, steely under the afternoon clouds that build over the peaks. The whole lake lies within Triglav National Park.

The lake is fed from the west by the Savica, which emerges from a karst spring and drops 78 metres as a waterfall before running into the lake; the water comes from the basin of the Black Lake far above, travelling underground before it reappears. At the opposite, eastern end the Sava Bohinjka flows out under an old stone bridge, the first stretch of the river that soon becomes the Sava. Beside the bridge stands the small church of St John the Baptist, built before 1300 and among the finest pieces of medieval architecture in Slovenia. Inside, layer upon layer of frescoes from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries cover the walls: a figure of St Christopher painted three times over (around 1300, 1400 and 1530), St John the Evangelist drinking from a poisoned cup, Cain and Abel with a startling white devil. The Baroque bell tower, with its double onion and shingle roof, was added in the eighteenth century.

On the shore stands a statue of Zlatorog, the golden-horned chamois of Slovenian legend, and above the south shore a cable car climbs from about 560 to 1,800 metres onto Vogel, from where the whole lake lies below with the Triglav massif - Slovenia's highest summit - across the valley. Bohinj is a basin of four seasons: in winter there is skiing above and skating on the lake when the ice allows; in summer the lake is for swimming, kayaking and walks along the shore.

Getting there

The nearest larger Slovenian town is Kranj, about 39 km away (Villach in Austria is a little closer across the mountains); the nearest airport inside Slovenia is Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU), about 47 km away, while Klagenfurt Airport (KLU) in Austria is some 54 km off across the mountains. Arriva buses run roughly hourly from Ljubljana bus station via Bled and Bohinjska Bistrica to Ribčev Laz at the lake's eastern end and on to Ukanc in the west, taking about 1 hour 45 minutes. Bohinjska Bistrica, on the Bohinj railway, has the nearest train station, about 6 km from Ribčev Laz with a regular bus connection.