It is a lovely day in Bled. The lake is still and there is no wind.

I just travelled up to the Straza - a lookout over the lake - it is 642 meters up , but I think bled is 400 meters up.

I walked around the streets until i found the way up the hill. There you couild take a snow lift up to the top or walk - I took the snow lift as I have a blister from the walk up the Hallstatt hill - 4 euro return

It is 28 degrees so I am enjoying a Slovenian beer with the great views - 3 euro

Pam went for a walk around the lake edge (hills are not her thing)

We arrived at lesce bled after getting off the train. Lesce Bled is quite a working town - a bit of a turn off actually.

Pam and I were the only ones to get off the train which made me wonder if this was the right station!

we found that it was the correct station and we decided to catch a bus into bled itself - especially since there were no taxis at the rank.

There was a bus in 10 minutes and it turned up on time. It only cost about 2.70 euro for both of us to get into bled (about 4 km)

We then went to a tourist office and asked directions to our hotel.

The lady was very helpful and gave me a map of bled.

We had to walk abou 10 minutes to get to our hotel.

Pam says that the hotel is a bit of a scrubber - or in order words - it needed a make over about a decade ago.

Nothing special in the room - no aircon, no fridge, no jug, no safe, no toiletries but it does have a nice lake view.

Time to look for dinner.

Well our train arrived 6 minutes late for our 9 minute connection,

All of our documents said platform 5b - NOPE

We find a display board and see it is platform 2b

we have to go down the steps and along to get to 2b - as we get to the top we hear that the train is about to leave.

I give the conductor a loud yell from 50 meters away even though he just jumped up to the train - we are running now - the man heard us and let us on.

The train departed 30 seconds later.

We are now on the last hour of travel in the train. We are actually in a tunnel at the moment and have been for about 10 minutes - no idea how long it was.

We have been on the train for 3 hours and have traveled through some beautiful countryside including mountains and medows.

The Austrian mountains are great, still snow at the tops and lush medows below.

Only about 90 minutes to get to bled now, but we have to change trains in about 30 minutes - we had 9 minutes to connect but this train is running about 7 minutes late.

The story continues...

Well in my last post I mentioned that we just left Hallstat - after about 1.5 hours we arrived in attnang-puchheim.

Pam was worried as we only had 12 minutes to pickup a ticket and get on the train to Villach.

We rushed off the train and I left Pam with the bags as I tried to find the ticket office to pickup our tickets.

.There was a couple of people in front of me so I had to wait a minute or two. I showed the man the reference number and then he said he wanted my passport - Pam had this!!

I had my NZ drivers license so he used that!

I then rushed back to pam and the platform - we got to the platform and had a couple of minutes while waiting for the train.

Our train was suppose to arrive at 10:56 and a train arrived at 11:01

We caught the wrong train!

When we got to a seat i noticed that most people on the platform (about 10) were still there.

I went looking for the conductor to confirm the train was correct, but he said NO

It was not too bad as the conductor told us to get off at the next station and I determined that there was another train going to villach at 11:08

So we got off and waited for a couple of minutes and got on our original train - very lucky.

So we are currently heading to Salzburg and onto Villach and then with a 9 minute connection onto bled.

We caught the ferry from Hallstat over the lake to the train station (2.20 euro each)

We are now sitting on the train travelling towards Attnang-Puchheim where we transfer to a place or station called Villach.

We have 12 minutes to transfer to the other train but we forgot to buy our train tickets while in Vienna so we arranged for a ticket to be bought last night and I need to pick it up in Attnang-Pucheim.

Will we be able to pickup the ticket and transfer in 12 minutes? (the train must not be late arriving as welll)

If we do get the ticket and transfer then later in the day, about 1 hour from Lake Bled in Solvenia we have a 9 minute connection.

Pam is a bit concerned (she says she is having kittens)

All up the trains today will be about 6.5 hours and I think we are then suppose to catch a bus to Bled town from the railway station,

It is however a lovely warm day today!

This picture was taken at 5:30am on the morning that we leave HallStatt.

I am on my own little boat on lake Hallstatt. It is a little electric boat that has a 500 watt motor so speed is not great.

Like all things here this is a most relaxing way to spend an hour.

The views from the lake are great and the reflections in the water are brilliant.

Pam would not join me which is a real pity as it is so cruisy.

You really should have joined me Pam

The lovely view from just down the road (5 minutes walking) from our hotel. The photo above is a typical picture that would see of Hallstat on websites and brochures.

The view from above the town -  I walked up to the Salt Mine which is about 1.5 hours uphill.

A restaurant with an amazing view up near the salt mine at the top of the hill I climbed up.