The r?m?f a three-month visit made on the cusp of the great 1840s famine, whose preliminary signs lay everywhere about, it is characterised less by a delight in scene and custom than a feeling of profound irritation. A hundred and sixty-two years later, on the other hand, the breeze block skeletons around the airport perimeter are a mark not of indigence but prosperity. Not a main road in Cork or Kerry this summer seems to lack its signboard proclaiming that such and such a “pavement” is being widened with largesse from the EU, and there is scarcely a village on the south-west coast without its two dozen holiday homes in an advanced state of manufacture.Thackeray’s Irish Sketchbook, reposing in my suitcase as we negotiate the airport car park, must count as one of the most abrasive travel books ever written. Further still into the distance, summer verdure tracks away into the Cork suburbs.
Oddly enough these architectural preparations stir a twitch on the historical thread. To William Makepeace Thackeray, coming this way in the summer of 1842, the litter of half-finished building projects figured as a gigantic metaphor for the miserable state of Old Ireland. “The whole country is filled with such failures: swaggering beginnings that could not be carried through; grand enterprises begun dashingly, and ending in shabby compromises and downright ruin,” he observes. Beyond lies a Brobdingnagian ghetto of unfinished tower blocks, piled-up rubble and fenced-off roadway, the latter flanked by a kind of Sargasso Sea of orange cones.
There are four departure gates, each debouching on to a modest strip of tarmac filled with an assortment of small aircraft, baggage trucks and minibuses. From the arrivals lounge, Cork airport looks half built. And there was no one to disturb our picnic except the out-size ants trying to eat our sandwiches.For the last two days of the holiday, we decided it was too hot for exercise and lounged by the lake, periodically goading each other to jump in. After all, we felt better already – and sunbathing was an important part of Arnold Rikli’s cure.GIVE ME THE FACTS How to get thereEasyJet (0871-750 0100; ) flies to Ljubljana, from Stansted with returns from around £160. A taxi to Bled takes 45 minutes and costs around €30 (£21).Where to stayThe author stayed in a private self-catering apartment costing £11 per person per night bookable in advance through the local Globtour tourist office (00 386 4 574 18 21; ).Further information Slovenian Tourist Board (0870 225 5305; ).. The woman in the tourist office said it was 15 kilometres away My boyfriend knew better: it was seven kilometres at most.
After peddling uphill for an hour in the midday sun, I considered ditching my boyfriend for the woman in the tourist office. We gave up the fight 20 minutes later and walked along a dirt track that looked flat. A short walk later, and entirely by accident, we found ourselves in an Alpine fantasy: a meadow dotted with wild flowers, bordered by towering pines, with the Kamnik-Savinja Alps as a backdrop. The resort has long had a reputation as a refuge from the stresses of modern life. In the mid-19th century, exhausted fat cats of the industrial age came from all over Europe to cure their migraines, insomnia and obesity at Bled’s Institute of Natural Healing run by a Swiss, Arnold Rikli.Rikli’s method involved early starts, long walks, vegetarian food, and bathing in the lake. And, even though we didn’t have him to kick us out of bed at 5am, we decided to see if a little light Alpine exercise might cure our ailments as well.On our first day, we warmed up by climbing a hill by the lake. To the elderly German couple who passed us, this was obviously a stroll, but to my urban lungs, it was more challenging.
However, spurred on by the sight of a mountain deer, I made it to the summit and was rewarded with a view that looked like a touched-up postcard: implausibly blue and green in all the right places.By day three, I was ready for a bigger challenge: a bike ride to the Pokljuka Plateau. It was a health retreat, beach holiday and beer fest in one.We could be sipping a lager in a lakeside caf?n Bled town at midday and, by 1pm, have our choice of Slovenian scenery – gorges, meadows, rivers, woods or mountains – all to ourselves. And at around £350 all in for a week, we could also come back home feeling rather clever. But it is also a place where you may have to listen to a hotel entertainer singing a strangled version Frank Sinatra’s greatest hits while you’re trying to eat dinner.But just out of season, as we were in mid-June, it was wonderful: we went for walks in the woods, we hired bikes, we lounged around on the “grass beaches”, we swam in the lake, and we drank a lot of cheap booze. It was perfect – and dirt cheap at only £11 each a night.Bled is a tourist town with all the attendant pluses and minuses.
