Posts

Vintgar Gorge

The gorge, a beautiful piece of wilderness with steep depths, vertical walls and rapid river lies only some  4 km north-west of the famous Bled Lake. It was discovered in the 1891 by Jakob Žumer, the Major of the village of Gorje, and the cartographer and photographer Benedikt Lergetporer. The gorge was impassable at the time but very soon was arranged for the visitors. Bled has a long history in tourism and no wonder that the gorge is still one of the main tourist attractions of Slovenia.

The guarded entrance

 

It is closed during the winter since the wooden galleries can be slippery and combined with the amount of water which flows through when snow starts to melt it could be really dangerous, hence the metal doors just after the official entrance.

Maintenance workers on the galleries

In the season can be pretty crowded but we visited it just at the beginning of June and very early in the morning. We were lucky that the maintenance workers already entered the premises and we were allowed to enter it a few minutes before the official opening hours.

Wild beauty

At the beginning we were quite shocked by the cost of visit – 10 EUR for the entrance and 5 EUR for the parking – but soon we have realised what amount of work is needed to keep the 1.6 km long gorge safe since about 90% of the path is on wooden galleries and bridges. Beside that the beautiful Radovna river can cause some problems after a heavy storm.

Nature regulates itself

Looking back

The river carved its way through the vertical rocks of the Hom and Boršt hills and graced the gorge with its waterfalls, pools and rapids. Since it is very steep, high and narrow the sun enters it randomly and adds to the beauty with the light plays.

It works in both directions – did we mention that you have to come back the same way unless you want to take a pretty long walk around?

The Vintgar gorge also includes two man-made sights. After some two thirds of the trail the gorge opens a bit and the river slows down just before the single-arch stone bridge of the Bohinj railway, constructed in 1906, which crosses the gorge 33.5 m above the river, and the dam from which the water is routed to the small Vintgar hydroelectric power plant under the Šum waterfall.

It is not easy to take very good photos there – the gorge is narrow, the light pretty difficult and the crowd is always in your way – or you in theirs. Using wide angle lens helps a bit though and in a moment with no crowd a nice LE can be taken.

But at the damm the breeze from the falling water was so intense that our HuaweiP30Pro on the tripod behaved like the sail in the wind:) hence the blurred image.

Pretty soon after the damm the other entrance is reached – if you are with your own car it is probably a good idea to start from this side, which lies just above the Šum waterfall.

Above the Šum Waterfall.

The waterfall itself lies outside of the to-be-paid-for boundaries since the gorge ends here. But it is difficult to take photos there since there was no easy access to the river bed and also no stance outside of the water.

Šum Waterfall

We assume that the circumstances here change and with less water in the bed access is easier – but then also the waterfall is smaller though.

Can you spot the rainbow in the water drops? The 13-meter high waterfall is pretty powerful and the breeze quite strong just like at the dam above.

Have a coffee just above the waterfall as we did before heading back. It is the same trail but the sights are changing here very fast and you will sure enjoy the way back almost like as it was the first time.

Clear skies in the early morning provided for the sharp pictures even in the shade. Evening light changes everything, many times the morning mist ads to the beauty, with the fog the gorge becomes misty and mystical. You can find a lot different photos from the gorge in our feed on Instagram We will sure come back to experience it in different circumstances.

Text and photos: Zoran Leban Trojar.

All photos taken with HuaweiP30Pro courtesy of Huawei Slovenija.

More information about the gorge can be found here.

Lake Bled

We can say it; Lake Bled is the most popular destination in Slovenia. Everybody knows it & everybody wants to visit it. That means also – the place is crowded most of the year and we, the locals, try to avoid it at least in the high season (that would be – most of the year) 🙂

IMG_3725

We mostly visit it when somebody visits us. Friends, family and also Instagrammers coming to Slovenia usually don’t mind the fact there is almost no parking space and if you find one you will pay for it too much. They also don’t mind the rude waiter serving the famous ‘kremšnita’ (Bled cream cake) near the lake the annoying fact that you can’t enjoy the amazing view of the lake from the castle without paying the entrance fee. Not anymore.

Framed with HuaweiP20Pro

If a place is so beautiful anything goes. That is the feeling I have about Lake Bled but still … it is an amazingly beautiful place and it is worth visiting it.

IMG_8037

If you are a photographer, an Instagrammer and you have the same idea as most of people I take to Lake Bled (take as many photos as fast as I can) here are some tips for you;

Find a parking space (the prices go as high as 10 euros so – be picky), leave your car in the city and go down by the lake. Take a walk around the lake. There is a path around it, approximately 6 kilometres long so it will take you less than 2 hours to see the lake in all its beauty. Depending on the sun & the light you will for sure find it easy to snap – to many photos.

Before the sunrise – night photo with HuaweiP20Pro

There will be some piers, trees, swans, beautiful houses and boats on your way so we are quite sure you will enjoy your walk. I recommend you to do it in the early morning. Sunrises are as amazing as sunsets but most of the people like to sleep in the morning.

Mist over the lake – taken with HuaweiP20Pro

You will not be alone but there but there will be less people around the lake and (if you are visiting in the summer) in the lake.

IMG_8049

IMG_3760

If you have more time, you just have to rent a boat or take one of the tourist boats going to the island. I recommend you a boat of your own so you can really take some amazing photos from the lake and get to the best spots to photograph the famous island and its church.

For the ones that want something extra, a climb to the nearby hills is a must! Only from there you can really see the whole lake and take the best photos. But – don’t be surprised to meet some people also high up there.

 

Magic moment – taken with HuaweiP20Pro

The easiest way to get best photos is to climb the Ojstrica or Osojnica hill, but there are some other, too. Check the list here!  

IMG_3731

Still not enough?

If you ask me, the ultimate way to photographing Lake Bled is from a hot air balloon:) I did it just once and I would do it again. Many times. Balloon offers you simply the best views of the lake, castle, island, surrounding hills … everything there is to see and from a completely different perspective.

DSCN7363

DSCN7347

DSCN7356

DSCN7366

Sanja Leban Trojar, @sanya_lt

 

Save

Above Lake Bled in a hot air balloon

To be honest, I do not like anything that has  to do with heights. I am not a fan of flying and bungee jumping is usually only a part of my nightmares. Nevertheless, when Domen from 3glav adventures invited me to try hot air ballooning over Lake Bled I couldn’t resist and even haven’t thought much about how high would we go and how would I feel up there. All I had on my mind was that flying over Lake Bled should mean amazing views. Lots of them!

Since hot air balloon can only move up and down and everything else depends on the winds, it took us 2 weeks to find a day that worked for all of us (meaning that I had time, 3glav adventures was available and weather conditions were perfect). However, it was well worth the trouble!

IMG_8455

Mission number 1 was getting the balloon standing up. Since I could not help, I was searching for any option to take that ‘classic Instagram’ photo of a person walking inside the balloon. Forget it! Huge fans, ropes all around, hot air … it was simply too dangerous to get so close. This is all I got. 😀

IMG_1492

Once the balloon was up everything went very fast. Suddenly there was Bled Island bellow us and I hardly managed to snap a few photos of it before we were already flying over the Bled Castle. Amazing! The perspective up there is sooooo different! I probably forgot to breathe in the first minutes of the flight since there was so much going on and there were so many amazing views.

C9BF844E-E3B9-4DFA-8D29-3173F0A09832

IMG_8471

At this stage, we were flying about 300 meters above ground and I had no time to panic. Changing phones in my hands ( I always carry around two phones), trying even to do some photos with the camera … I hardly noticed that things below us became really small. Well, we were already on 1.300 metres above Lake Bled. The views were spectacular! Once again, there was not much space and time for panic attacks.

 

IMG_8472

IMG_8484

Some ‘panic time’ was available when balloon was slowly descending but all I had to do was to look around and the beauty of what I saw had calmed me down. Just before landing I had an opportunity to take last few photos and that was it. The end.

This was one of the best (photo) experiences I had in my life and the best one since I’ve started to work on @igslovenia project. Not only I was able to see Lake Bled in a way I have never seen it before, I also had the chance to do it with a bunch of great people. No, I am not saying this because I’m a nice person or somebody asked me to. It is plain and simple truth. There are people and there are teams that just know their business and know what people want and need. Team 3glav adventures for sure is one of them and I can easily say: Whatever sport activity you are planning near Lake Bled – check 3glav adventures.

IMG_8498

85838577-2DAF-41EC-9C46-06D298E8AD2A

PS: All the photos were taken by Iphone6.

 

Save

Save