Rendezvous with potica at Bled island

The warm scent of potica at one of the most popular photo locations in Slovenia

You can also visit the most famous Slovenian island, Bled Island and enjoy its delicious Slovenian speciality, potica! Visiting the island was, and still is, a holiday, and most Slovenian holidays are accompanied by potica, the queen of Slovenian gastronomy. On the island, you will also have the opportunity to try your hand at making it.

The journey to the island will already be etched in your memory. You will sail across the calm surface of the blue lake. You can take a modern electric boat or a traditional pletna, a handmade wooden rowing boat. For more than two hundred years, since the time of Maria Theresa, only twenty-three Bled families have had the right to use them.

After landing, there is a climb up ninety-nine steps that are almost four hundred years old. Past the Chapel of St Mary and a branching fig tree to the top, where you will find yourself in front of a typical Gorenjska house. It has portals and window soffits made of local green Peračica tuff, vines trailing down the façade and coloured corners, also known as stitched edges. And the warm aroma of the holiday’s wafts from the house. Well, of potica.

The Potičnica, as it is called, bakes potica every day in a variety of sweet and savoury flavours. In total, but not every day, they make more than 50 different ones. There are also vegan, yeast and gluten-free ones. And they’re all baked exclusively in round, earthenware moulds called “potičnice”. Some say that there are as many recipes for potica in Slovenia as there are master bakers. The secrets of preparation are usually handed down from generation to generation, but in the Potičnica they are happy to share their recipes.

The island offers several activities for pre-booked groups. A shorter option is a half-hour tour of the preparation and baking of the cakes with a tasting. They recommend a workshop. You can choose from a one-and-a-half-hour workshop on preparing and baking a potica, in which participants assemble a cake using pre-prepared dough and fillings, or even a three-hour workshop on preparing and baking potica on your own.

Once the cake is in the oven for both workshops, your hosts will take you on a guided tour of the island of Bled with a visit to the Baroque Church of the Assumption, where you can ring the half-millennium-old wishing bell. You will climb to the 52-metre-high freestanding bell tower, an architectural highlight of the area, where you will see the mechanical pendulum tower clock. You’ll also be shown the Baroque statue of Mary Magdalene and the spectacular views through the treetops of the stunning surroundings. Also, the oldest castle, according to written records, in Slovenia.

Participants in both workshops taste the baked cakes and take away their own little cake in a small clay pot.