Slovenia Travel Forum

My husband and I are planning two nights in July - is it better to base ourselves In Bled or Bohinj, or do one night in each?

Personally I liked Bohinj more mainly because it's more remote & natural. You can wander through the woods and discover Slap Savica, by crossing wooden bridges, climbing high up, etc. Beautiful experience. You could also head up Vogel peak for great views.

Bled is more popular because of it's look & the surroundings - eg church on the tiny island, castle perched high, mountains behind, etc. But for these reasons it is far more touristy.

Definitely you should visit both places, but say you're staying in Bohinj, you could then visit (drive to) Bled around mid-morning, hang around till the evening, dine at a restaurant (Vila Bled?), then continue to your next destination in the evening/night.

It's not a huge distance between two places, so one can be easily visited as a day trip from your base. In Bohinj you have more unaltered landscape to see, the lake is larger and quieter, cleaner and less build up around shores. From that point of view if you like more natural scenery, stay at Bohinj, there's a lot of accomodation available, even camp at the lake shore at very nice spot if you like outdoors. Very good for hiking, too and for swimming.
If you like more crowds, more night life, more shops, more hotels, more other tourism services, then I think you'd better stay at Bled. Two spots are quite different from eachother. Water in lake Bled is quite bad quality, especially comparing to Bohinj, so if you want to swim, better go there.

Whatever you do, visit both lakes!

Lake Bohinj is much quieter and I think tranquil and just nicer than Lake Bled. However, both lakes are lovely and should be visited. Lake Bled is more central in terms of transport links than Bohinj, but it isn't a great distance between then two and you can easily travel from one to the other and back by car or bus in a day with plenty of time to enjoy yourselves. If you want to travel to other places such as Ljubliana then Bled is probably more convenient.

If you do choose Bohinj then I'd recommend staying in Ribcev Laz at the South eastern corner of the lake as this is where most of the attractions are as well as restaurants and the nicest views are from the stone bridge in the village (in my opinion at least). The Hotel Jezero is on the corner opposite the lake front and the Hotel Bohinj is also close by to the lake. Other hotels are set further back but all within 10-15 mins walk max.

Wherever you choose I hope you have a great time. In fact, I'm sure you will as Slovenia is a great and beautiful place and the Slovene people are very hospitable.

You must see both, but I enjoyed the quietness of Bohinj much more than Bled.
Two different town's, as Bled is for the tourist's, and has lots of people, but maybe has more to see, where -as Bohinj has a nice small town, walk's, boat ride to then end, and then a cable car to the top of the mountain for great view's.

Thanks everyone, very helpful. Will definitely be swimming, so probably base ourselves in Bohinj

From Bohinj, I recommend

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1f58f0/

Be carefull because water temperature could be between 17 and 20°C :)