Walking around Lake Bled, Slovenia’s most gorgeous

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(the article below accompanies this video)

One minute you’re eating breakfast in a simple dining area with modern lighting, the next you’re in some mystical, timeless era strolling amongst ancient European castles and tranquil mountain lakes. Slovenia will play with your sense of reality. (And so will diabetes.)

After arriving in the northwestern town of Bled yesterday, Masayo had done little but relax and dine at Paul McCartney’s favorite restaurant. So today it was time to see world-famous Lake Bled, plus gorgeous Bled Castle high on a steep hill on the lakeside. The stunning effect of looking out over the surrounding mountain landscape can’t be overstated.

Plus I finally managed to get my blood sugar under 200 for the first time in a couple days. Briefly, anyway.

Things didn’t begin well. When we awoke in our room at Pension Union in the heart of Bled (an amazing deal I’d found online – viva booking.com and off-season travel!) my blood sugar was still high, 230. I was in the middle of a bad streak that wouldn’t relent.

Downstairs Masayo and I had our first Bled breakfast. Pension Union’s morning meal was smaller than others we’ve had, consisting of several types of bread with lunch meats and cheese, a small bowl of fruit, and coffee. But we aren’t picky – we take the enormous buffet breakfasts when they come and the small ones when they come, our fate in the hands of the travel gods – and in fact neither of us finished it all.

I took my Humalog shot through my Bluff Works pants right at the table and yet again went through my diabetic psychological routine: Maybe this will be the injection that brings my BG down, I thought ever-optimistically as I stuck the needle in my leg and pushed the plunger.

But it wouldn’t be.

As we did in Ptuj (and other places) we made sandwiches out of the leftovers for lunch later, and we also snuck a couple of bananas out. We tried to sneak past the owner with our ill-gotten booty but he clearly saw what we were doing. We felt silly, but he didn’t seem to be concerned about it.

Rather than hanging around the room wasting time after breakfast, which is our usual habit, we went out into Bled right away because rain was forecast for the day and it wasn’t raining yet so now was our chance.

As we walked towards the north part of astonishing Lake Bled towards Bled Castle I noticed that there were very few shops and kiosks. Normally addicts of carbonated water, Masayo and I have drunk very little since we left Hungary. Slovenia is stingy with its shops; I don’t know why.

Bled Castle is a smallish stone structure precariously perched on the top of a very steep and narrow hill. To get up to it we hiked up an endless zig-zag of wooden stairs through a wooded area. Views of the lake behind us got ever more panoramic as we ascended.

The castle costs €9 to enter and tour and elected to skip that part – I was more into the lake views than the castle itself. From an edge of the castle you can look out at the entirety of Lake Bled and see the famous island and church whose reflection has inspired a million camera shutters.

And why wouldn’t it? It’s not really possible to take a bad photo around Lake Bled.

We wound down stairs and paths a slightly different way than we’d gone up, and once back down to ground level Masayo said she still wasn’t feeling well and wanted to return to the room. She’s needed rest for a few days, so she took the key and went back to Pension Union and I set out to walk all the way around Lake Bled.

Before beginning my lengthy solo walk I checked to see if the breakfast Humalog had worked like I hoped. It hadn’t; I was 219. Being diabetic is funny – in the face of consistent bad news the only way to keep your head up is to hope that the next number is good. And I had special reason to today, I told myself: I was going to be doing a lot of walking. Exercise often fixes blood sugar when nothing else works.

So I took no insulin, just setting off down the narrow asphalt path that follows the lakeside through alpine scenery, gentle but sturdy winter trees, and busy, silly ducks. There were few others walking the path today; except for a group of school kids that passed by me at one point I basically had the lake to myself. There was the finest of mists in the air but that only enhanced the experience; it never did really rain.

Halfway around the lake you can get the best views of Bled Island and the tower of the Church of the Assumption of Mary. One of the premier views in all of Europe, the spectacle from the far end of the Lake Bled shore is impossibly absorbing. The overcast sky did nothing to diminish my view; the cheerful-looking ducks didn’t seem bothered either.

There are boats you can rent, with or without an oarsman, to take you to the island and poke around the 1600s-era church. That would have been nice but since Masayo wasn’t with me it felt silly to go there alone so I just kept walking.

All in all it took me about two hours to fully walk around the lake. As I neared the road leading back to the town of Bled I stopped on a bench to check my blood sugar. And the lake walk had done what several Humalog injections and all my hopeful vibes could not: I was 106, perfect.

And despite my problems with high blood sugars recently I decided that 106 was a bit too low for all the exercise I was still getting. I ate a Twix and kept walking by the quietly lapping, clear and ancient waters of Europe’s nicest lake.

Finally I made it back to Pension Union. Masayo was tapping away on her computer, looking rested and content. It was lunch time so I ate the sandwich and banana from breakfast. I asked the staff for some hot water and rather than giving me two cups like I was thinking, they emerged from the office with an entire hot water pot for us to plug in in the room. We had all the instant coffee and lemon vitamin C drink we could handle now!

Before dinner I was still under 200 – barely: I was 196. Good enough, I sighed. Dinner was downstairs at the pension restaurant; I had a thin soup with carrots plus beef goulash and bread dumplings.

Yet again I took my shot at the table and yet again I hoped it would be sufficient. But bread dumplings often surprise me with their carb content, and I yet again had to face bad diabetes news just before bed. I was 239 at 12:30 am.

But even that couldn’t detract from the exquisite experience I’d had communing with Bled’s magical lake and island church views. I took a couple units of corrective Humalog and drifted off to sleep, my head still full of sweet mountain air, the smooth sounds of ducks gliding through the water, the quietness of the bare trees, and the satisfaction of, for a time anyway, fixing my blood sugar with some good old-fashioned exercise.

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