A Guide to Lake Bohinj - Slovenia's Largest Lake

Last week I uploaded a post on some of the highlights from our trip to Slovenia (check it out here). I talked about how we spent the first part of our trip (in Triglav National Park) staying at Lake Bohinj –which really was lovelier than you would imagine. This post will focus on some of the highlights around the lake if you are lucky enough to spend some time here. Then this post talks about some of the other stunning sites in the National Park!

Lakeside

Starting with the star of the show, the lake itself! We were staying at the east end of the lake in the village of Ribcev Laz which seems to be the ‘main’ town of Lake Bohinj. There’s a church (St. John’s church) and bridge as well as a few ‘beach’ spots to go swimming from. My favourite time to go down to the lakeside (only a 5 minute walk from our accommodation) was first thing in the morning – no tourists, calm and beautiful.

Slap Savica

At the other end of the lake is Slap Savica, a gorgeous waterfall (slap being the Slovenian word for waterfall). I feel like some waterfalls can sometimes oversell themselves and end up just being a trickle but this really was spectacular. I personally would recommend driving as far as you can, because even from the car park there is a ~20 minute walk uphill to see the waterfall. Your other option would be walking up from the lakeside. We even saw people cycling, admittedly very slowly!

Hill Pec Viewpoint

When a lake is surrounded by peaks that means there is a viewpoint calling out to be visited! Intelligently or not, I decided to fit in a climb to Hill Pec early in the morning before a full day of road tripping (blog post coming on that next!). From our accommodation, it was around 45 minutes there, with 25 minutes of uphill. The path was a little unmaintained and I had it to myself! Kinda creepy when it’s early in the morning but the view was lovely and peaceful.

Vogar Viewpoint

Okay so you’ve heard about Hill Pec, now it's time to hear about Vogar. On our very first morning I took us up this actual mountain. I swear one blog post had said it was a 10 minute walk from the last car park but 2 hours later we just about stumbled up to the mediocre vista you can see in the photo above/right. Being serious though, it was a tough climb that wasn’t necessarily worth it for the views at the top; we could hardly enjoy it in our fragile, sweaty states! By some stroke of a miracle, we did find a pub at the top which I don’t think my boyfriend could quite believe. But then coming down was possibly even worse than going up...

Getting flashbacks of the treacherous hike to/from Vogar viewpoint...

Mostnica Gorge

It’s not Mostnica Gorge’s fault that it was on the way down from Vogar! The parts we saw before slinking back home in a melted pile were very impressive. I would definitely recommend a visit if you have time and aren’t completely knackered from any other hikes!

Vogel

If you have the time and money, head up to the ski area of Vogel for tall views of the lake. We decided not to spend our hard earned cash on a >20 euro chairlift and instead enjoyed the views from viewpoints detailed above!

Activities and restaurants

One of my boyfriend’s favourite things we did was renting a canoe to row around on the lake. It was 12 euros for an hour which was well enough for me! They also had kayaks and paddle boards and would definitely recommend.

In terms of restaurants, Foksner has great burgers and we enjoyed our litre of wine for 15 euros! We also went to Pod Skalco on our first night where we enjoyed pizza with a view of the rock climbing that happens next door.

So that's Lake Bohinj! Please do let me know if you want any more Lake Bohinj tips - and do keep an eye out for blog posts coming up soon on the rest of Triglav National Park and also all of the logistics you need to know!