LAKE BLED - Croatia and Slovenia - page 901

Grad signs marking the steepest route (follow the wooden stakes all the way up the steep
switchback steps); or, for a longer but less steep route, continue past the church on the same
street about five minutes, bearing uphill (left) at the fork, and find the Grad 1 sign just
after the Pension Bledec hostel on the left. Once you're on this second trail, don't take the
sharp-leftuphillturnatthefork(instead,continuestraightup,aroundthebackofthehill).If
you'dratherskipthehike,youcantakethemorning tourist bus (see“GettingAroundLake
Bled,” earlier), your rental car, a taxi (around€10),or—ifyou'rewealthy andromantic—a
horse and buggy (€40, €10 extra for driver to wait 30 minutes and bring you back down).
However, all of these options take you only to the parking lot, from which it's still a steep
and slippery-when-wet five-minute hike up to the castle itself.
Eating: The restaurant at the castle is fairly expensive, but your restaurant reservation
gets you into the castle grounds for free (international cuisine and some local specialties,
€12-16 pastas, €20-25 main courses, €20 fixed-price meal, daily in summer 10:00-22:00,
lessoff-season,tel.[phone]).Betteryet,bringyourown picnic tomunchalongthewall
with million-dollar views over Lake Bled (buy sandwiches at the Mercator grocery store in
the commercial center before you ascend—see here ) .
Visiting the Castle: After buying your ticket, go through the gate and huff the rest of
thewayuptotheoutercourtyard.We'lltourthecastle clockwise, starting fromhere.Asthe
castle is continually being spruced up, some details may be different than described.
Turning left at the entrance, you'll pass WCs, then the door to Mojster Janez's working
replica of a printing press (grajska tiskarna/manufaktura) from Gutenberg's time. You can
pay €2-25 for your own custom-made souvenir certificate using this very old technology.
While this may seem like a tourist gimmick, there's actually some interesting history here.
Asinmanylands,theprintingpresswasacriticaltoolintheevolutionofSlovenia'sculture.
Look above the press for a life-size mannequin of Primož Trubar (1508-1586), a Sloveni-
an cross between Martin Luther and Johannes Gutenberg. In Trubar's time, Slovene was
considered a crude peasants' language—not just unworthy of print, but actually illegal to
print. So this Reformer went to Germany and, in 1550—using presses like this one—wrote
and printed the first two books in the Slovene language: Abecedarium (an alphabet primer
to teach illiterate Slovenes how to read) and Catechismus (a simplified version of the New
Testament). Trubar smuggled his printed books back to Slovenia (hidden in barrels of play-
ing cards) and, en route to Ljubljana, was briefly given refuge in this castle. (Trubar is still
much-revered today, appearing on the Slovenian €1 coin.) Up the stairs is an exhibition in
English about early printing methods and the importance of moveable type for advancing
the Protestant Reformation, whose goal was to get the Word of God more easily into the
hands of everyday people. You'll also see one of those first Trubar books—notice it was
printed in Tübingen, Germany, an early enclave of the Reformation.