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Vintgar Gorge and Bled/Bohinj between Kranjska Gora and Ljubjlana

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After a few days in Kranjska Gora, we will stay in Ljubjlana for 2 days, driving between the 2 places.. The parking situation at Bled for the Gorge confuses me a bit.

I am thinking we'd get to the Gorge early, 8 or 9 am. The lot in Bled where the shuttle goes from doesn't seem to work for parking the car there and leaving it while we wander into Bled for a look around. I don't want to spend the time taking the boat ride on Lake Bled, we are nature lovers and would probably be happier heading over to Bohinj for some walking/hiking/eating before getting to Ljubjlana as early as possible in the afternoon.

Please help me with timing this day. We move quickly so the suggested 3 hour time allowance for the Gorge would probably be 2 for us. Bled seems a bit touristy for us, but I'd like to have a quick look at it. We don't have a ton of time in Ljubjlana so I'd like to get there quickly, after fitting in the sightseeing I want to do on the way there.

Thank you.

Posted by
414 posts

If you go that early to the gorge, drive all the way to the entrance and park right by the ticket office. You don’t need to use the shuttle bus. Keep in mind that the route through the gorge is one-way and you have to walk all the way back to the entrance by one of the hikes over the mountain. I took me 2.5 hours to walk through the gorge and come back and I walk quickly. The hike back is longer than you think.

Posted by
68 posts

If you are able to arrive Gorge early (by 7:30am), you can find parking right outside of the entrance. 2.5hr should be plenty to walk through the gorge and return to the parking lot. After that, you can drive to Lake Bohinj(30 minutes) and enjoy the rest of your day there. Bled is touristy. We stayed in Bled so did not need to look for parking as we were able to walk to the lake, there were a lot of cars and I would imagine finding parking stressful...saw a lot of families with younger children. It might be too crowded for you if you are nature lover.
We were just there two weeks ago, in process of putting together a trip report.

Posted by
157 posts

If the weather is clear, I highly recommend the longer walk back from the gorge (the route by the church). The views across the valley are beautiful. Even though theoretically the point is to see the gorge, I liked the return just as much.

Posted by
68 posts

We too took the longer walk, it is a beautiful walking trail. We started at 7:30, finished by 10am.

Posted by
27 posts

I can't figure out where to find the main Vintgar visitor center on google maps, I would like to try heading there first but I can't find where to go...

We will have a car.

Posted by
106 posts

I can't figure out where to find the main Vintgar visitor center on google maps

That's called Soteska Vintgar, which is just north of Gostlina Vintgar (a restaurant). There's some paid parking spaces between them.

Posted by
12 posts

Don't worry about trying to find the main entrance to the Gorge Visitor's Center. The single lane road takes you right in. We used our phone GPS and it worked great our entire time in Slovenia.

Posted by
27 posts

Thanks, I see it! For a Monday in early September, it appears that we won't be crowded enough to need to pre-arrange an entry time if we arrive 7:30 to 8:00, perhaps 8:30 ish? We just get tickets, then stand there and wait for them to let us in, eh?

I have decided to hang around lake Bled afterwards, probably parking at the castle then walking down and around. A friend tells me the 6km walk around the lake is lovely, I'll see how much energy we have after the gorge.

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