Bled

This article covers location in Slovenia. For further meanings, see Bled (disambiguation) .

Bled Veldes or Field
Basic data
Country	Slovenia
Historic region	Upper Carniola / Gorenjska
Statistical region	Gorenjska (Upper Carniola)
Coordinates	46 ° 22 '  N , 14 ° 7'  E Coordinates: 46 ° 22 '4 "  N , 14 ° 6' 45"  E
height	501  m. i. J.
surface	72.3  km²
Residents	8,192 (2014)
Population density	113 inhabitants per km²
Telephone code	(+386) 4
Post Code	4260
License Plate	KR
Structure and administration
structure	Bled, Bodešče , Bohinjska Bela , Koritno , Kupljenik , Obrne , Ribno , Selo pri Bledu , Slamniki , Zasip
Mayor :	Janez Fajfar
Mailing address	Cesta svobode 13 4260 Bled
Website	www.bled.si

Bled on Lake Veldes

Locations Gmajna and Zasip north of the castle

St. Mary's Church on a small island in Lake Bled

Bled ( German : Veldes or Feldes ) is the name of a municipality on Lake Bled ("Veldeser See", Slovenian Blejsko jezero ) in the north-western part of Slovenia - a few kilometers south of the Austrian border and around 50 km northwest of the capital Ljubljana (Laibach). The one at an altitude of about 500  m. i. J. Bled itself is a climatic health resort and has 5164 inhabitants (2002), the entire municipality had 8192 inhabitants on January 1st, 2014.

history

First evidence

The first mention of Bled as Ueldes (d. I. Veldes) in the Mark Krain comes from April 10, 1004 and can be found in a royal charter, when property there was transferred from King Henry II of Otton to the Bishop of Brixen Albuin  I. In 1011 the same Roman-German king gave Bishop Adalbero, Albuin's successor, the rock and the castle on it. It became the administrative seat of the Brixen manor in Oberkrain. In 1278 the rulership of the Duchy of Carniola passed to the Habsburgs after the Roman-German King Rudolf I had triumphed over Ottokar II Přemysl in the battle of the Marchfeld . The manorial power remained in the hands of the prince-bishops of Brixen until the abolition of the manorial power in 1848, as the numerous representations of the coats of arms of the Brixen monastery (Tyrolean eagle with crook and a silver lamb on a red background) and the bishops in the castle show. The church patronage of the castle chapel, which is consecrated to the Brixen diocesan saints Ingenuin and Albuin , also commemorates the rulership of Brixen . In 1852 the Brixen bishops sold their last rulership rights in Veldes.

Like the other regions of Slovenia, the region around Bled belonged to the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 and from 1804 to the Habsburg Empire of Austria , namely to the Crown Land, Duchy of Carniola . When Austria-Hungary was dissolved in 1918, Slovenia opted for the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . The connection to southern Carinthia , where a Slovenian ethnic group has lived for centuries, has not been severed to this day. In terms of traffic, the Karawanken tunnel connects the Bled region with the Villach , Wörthersee / Ossiacher See and Spittal an der Drau regions , and the Loiblpass with Klagenfurt and Lower Carinthia.

Prehistory and early history

The area around Bled was first settled around 20,000 years ago. In the millennia of the Stone Age, initially the abundance of game, later the fertile soil and the sheltered location of Bled contributed to the increased settlement. It is not known whether the Bronze Age pile-dwelling villages around Ljubljana (Laibach) penetrated to Bled. Illyrian tribes probably established around 1200 BC. Further settlements. Excavations at the foot of the castle hill at Bled uncovered 80 graves from the early Iron Age (between 800 and 600 BC). In the 3rd century BC, Celtic tribes came from the northwest, partly displaced the Illyrians or became part of the indigenous population. In 113 BC The Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and Teutons passed through Slovenia and the area around Bled and thus prevented the expansion of the Roman Empire in the direction of Noricum for some time .

Roman rule

It was not until Julius Caesar's successor , Octavian (Emperor Augustus ), that Noricum and Bled were incorporated into Roman rule. The mountain ranges near Bled are named after Julius Caesar: the Julian Alps . The Illyrians and Celts had already mined and processed copper and metal from the Bled ( Jesenice ) region . The Romans now pushed the mining and technical processing of metals and thus ensured further influx.

Migration and the Middle Ages

During the European-Asiatic migration period from around 350 to 600 AD, some Germanic ( Longobards , Ostrogoths and Visigoths ) and later Slavic tribes also migrated through the region around Bled. Only the southern Slavic tribe of the Slovenes settled permanently at the foot of the Julian Alps and the Triglav (between 560 and 600 AD). The first Slavic settlements around Bled date from this time, in the Middle Ages the villages Mlino, Zagorice, Grad and many more emerged from them.Just like the rest of today's Slovenia, Bled was part of the first all-Slavic confederation of the Franconian merchant from 631 AD Samo was established. Bled belonged to the sub-region of Carantania , which was conquered by the Franks in 788. After the end of Frankish rule , the Bavarian influence increased through the Archdiocese of Salzburg , and from 1004 Veldes belonged to Bishop Albuin von Brixen as a gift from Emperor Heinrich II . From the late 13th century onwards, Veldes, like all of Carniola, Carinthia and Styria, was part of the Habsburg rule .

Bled Castle and Church

Habsburgs

The peasant unrest and revolts against feudalist and clerical exploitation in the 15th and 16th centuries also spread to the Veldes of that time. In 1558, Herbard VIII von Auersperg took over Castle Veldes as patron of the Protestants . However, in the course of the Counter Reformation , the clergy and nobility conquered all the former Protestant communities around the place by the end of the century.

Veldes experienced an economic boom during the reign of Maria Theresa (1740–1780). Even before that, “Feldes” was known as “Gesund-Bad”, whose springs and lake are said to have healing properties and are also viewed and targeted as a health resort by “more remote places” has been toured. In Napoleonic times, Veldes was assigned to the Illyrian provinces , after which it again fell under the Habsburg rule or was again made available to the diocese of Brixen , whose most important remote ownership it had been for centuries, about which its land register , its income directories, provide information.

The diocese of Bressanone sold its property to the owner of the Aßling ironworks ( Jesenice ) in the middle of the 19th century . The castle and lake changed hands several times in the following years until 1919. In 1858 the Swiss doctor Arnold Rikli , who worked with naturopathic treatments, built the naturopathic facility “Mallnerbrunn” on Lake Veldes , thus laying the foundation for the place's reputation as a climatic health resort, so that in 1901 the New York Times titled “Natur-Kur in Veldes” :

"In the southwest corner of the Austrian Empire in the province of Carniola there is the strangest of all the countless" cures "for which Austria is no less known than Germany and Switzerland [...] There are many Austrians, Germans, French, Italians and Hungarians, who make an annual pilgrimage to the small valley in the Julian Alps. Even Russia and England are sometimes represented among the patients of old Arnold Rikli […] Veldes is a beautiful place, an interesting one that deserves greater prominence on this side of the Atlantic. "

Meyers Konversationslexikon reports:

"Veldes (Slovene. Bled or Grad), village in Carniola, district authority Radmannsdorf , 501 m above sea level. M., on the lovely Veldeser See (150 hectares in size, 28 m deep), on the Aßling – Trieste state railway line, a popular bathing resort and summer resort , has an old castle on a steep rock, a pilgrimage church (Maria im See) on a picturesque Rock island, mineral spring (22.5 °), seaside bathing establishments, a Riklische nature (sun) sanatorium, a spa house with a park, hotels and villas and (1900) 578 (as a municipality in 1646) Slovenia. Residents. To the southwest the picturesque valley of the Wocheiner Save. Compare v. Schweiger-Lerchenfeld, Veldes (Vienna 1889). "

The Austrian Arctic explorer Julius von Payer regularly spent his summer vacations in Veldes and became an enthusiastic supporter of the spa methods of the Riklische Anstalt with its extensive summer baths. In August 1915 Payer died of a heart attack in Bad Veldes. Until the end of Imperial Austria , the city belonged to the Kronland Carniola , with Bled forming an independent municipality in the political district of Radmannsdorf and also belonging to the judicial district of Radmannsdorf .

Yugoslavia

Tito's residence at the time on Blejsko jezero

When the Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed , the National Council of Slovenes decided on October 31, 1918 to join the SHS state, which was proclaimed in Agram on October 29 . The monarchically ruled state now consisted of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia and from 1929 on was called the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . The Soča / Isonzo valley, the part of the Collios populated by Slovene , the karst region and Istria fell to Italy, the victor of war. The German place name Veldes was no longer officially used.

The Yugoslav royal family Karađorđević chose Bled as their summer residence , and Yugoslav prime ministers as well as Belgrade court circles were on cure there, so that picturesque Bled became a place of international gatherings of statesmen and diplomats .

In 1930 King Alexander received the Italian ambassador Galli in Bled and made suggestions for a radical change in Yugoslav-Italian relations and a future new alliance policy, Hermann Göring held talks there with the Yugoslav foreign minister Milan Stojadinović, and took place there at the end of August 1935 a conference of the Little Entente -  Czechoslovakia , Yugoslavia, Romania - took place in which "in view of the prewar situation in Central and Southeastern Europe" every possible restoration of the Habsburg dynasty "in any Central European state" (meaning Hungary and Austria) was resolutely rejected, for many states that emerged from the Danube monarchy , like the Yugoslav General Staff, considered such a restoration to be more dangerous than a possible annexation of Austria to the German Empire .

Yugoslavia was attacked and occupied by German and Italian troops in 1941. In the Park Hotel in Bled (then Veldes again ), the “KdS Veldes”, composed of the Kripo , Gestapo and SS , was built for the whole of Upper Carniola. Under the motto “Urdeutsches Land returns home”, a staff position for the SS “ Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Ethnicity” was set up in the Parkhotel in the occupied territories of Carinthia and Carniola, and the notorious “resettlement staff ” carried out its work from here. In the period that followed, local partisans from various political groups, especially in the region around Bled, offered ever stronger resistance to the occupiers, which they met with extreme severity.

After the Second World War , Slovenia was part of the Yugoslav multi-ethnic state under Josip Broz Tito , who owned a villa near Bled and occasionally resided there as head of state, thus continuing the tradition of the Yugoslav royal family.

Economically, the region around Bled developed much faster and more modern than other parts of Yugoslavia thanks to tourism and the nearby industry as well as thanks to good transport connections and the proximity to Italy, Austria and Germany.

Republic of Slovenia

Since June 25, 1991, Bled has been part of the sovereign state of Slovenia. After independence, the region around Bled experienced an economic boom. In 1996 Bled became an independent municipality and is also the seat of the IEDC-Bled School of Management , founded in 1986 , a business school with multiple international accreditations . In mid-December 2006, the Gorje district was spun off from the Bled municipality and has since formed its own municipality.

Entrance hall to the stairs to the upper courtyard

Round table with fossil ammonites in the upper courtyard

tourism

The municipality lives particularly from tourism and benefits greatly from the location of Lake Bled at the foot of the Julian Alps , which make the holiday region popular for hiking and water sports enthusiasts in the winter months a popular destination for winter vacationers. The surrounding mountains protect the alpine village from the cold north winds and thus enable a long bathing season.

The beginnings of tourism in Bled go back to the year 1855, when the Swiss naturopath Arnold Rikli recognized the favorable mountain location and the healthy climate of Bled with a long bathing season. As early as 1895, the first bathing establishments on the lake and accommodation for bathers were built. Rikli developed a special cure and bathing plan with various applications up to and including healthy nutrition, which is still popular today. Riklis applications are supposed to provide relief for rheumatism, migraines, circulatory disorders, sleep disorders and many more.

At the beginning of the 21st century, in addition to health tourism, sports tourism developed in Bled . Mountain hiking, mountain biking, rafting, rowing and, in winter, skiing are very well represented there.

Today, Bled is a modern seaside resort with mountain houses in Alpine style, villas from the Wilhelminian era, hotels , guest houses , a casino and new buildings from the recent past. The place is known for family vacations as well as for sport and health. The sports airfield Lesce is located near the city , the closest international airport is Brnik , 35 km north of the capital Ljubljana .

The Bled cream slices are known nationwide .

Bled is also a member of the Alpine Pearls , which advocate environmentally friendly mobility in the Alpine region.

Districts

Two pletnas to transfer to the island on the right in the back

(German place names in brackets)

Bled ( Veldes ) Bodešče ( Wodeschitz ) Bohinjska Bela ( Wocheiner Vellach ) Koritno ( Koreuten ) Kupljenik ( Kuplenig )

Ribno ( tires ) Selo pri Bledu ( Sellen near Veldes ) Slamniki ( slamnig ) Zasip ( Asp )

Attractions

Overview

The Church of St. Mary with the famous wishing bell on a small island in Lake Bled is known across borders. Tourists can take a traditional open wooden boat, the pletna , to the island.

Other sights include Grimschitz Castle, Bled Castle and the Vintgar Gorge , four kilometers to the northwest.

Bled Castle with the Chapel of Saints Alboin and Ingenuin

→ Main article : Bled Castle

Bled Castle

View from the island to Bled and the castle

Apse of the chapel from the outside

Sanctuary

The castle stands on the top of a free-standing boulder directly on the northern shore of the lake, 139 m above Lake Bled . It is one of the oldest architectural monuments in Slovenia. When the Brixen bishops took over the property in Veldes in 1004, there was presumably a keep with a defensive wall at the site of today's castle . Palas and towers were added in the High Middle Ages and the defense system was completed. After the earthquakes of 1511 and 1690, the castle was rebuilt and renewed between 1951 and 1961 according to plans by A. Bitenc. The Romanesque defensive wall with towers has been preserved. The fortified entrance with the drawbridge was reconstructed. The castle buildings are arranged around a lower and an upper courtyard. The farm buildings were downstairs, the living quarters upstairs, where the museum and restaurant are today . A stone table with a beautiful fossil ammonite can be viewed on the upper terrace .

The castle chapel is worth seeing .

Sports

• Bled is known for its men's volleyball team . The club ACH Volley Bled plays in the Central European League MEVZA , which it won twice and in the Volleyball Champions League .

• Even Hockey is played in Bled. The Summer Cup takes place every August. In addition to the host team HK Bled , EC VSV and EC KAC will also take part.

• Lake Bled is also a popular regatta course for water sports enthusiasts. In 1966, 1979, 1989 and 2011 the World Rowing Championships were held in Bled and Bled hosted the first World Rowing Cup in 2010.

• The Winter Swimming World Championships were held here in 2010 and again in February 2020 .

• International biathlon competitions take place regularly in nearby Pokljuka .

Daughters and sons of the city

• Michelangelo von Zois (1874–1945), Austrian lawyer, civil servant, writer and journalist
• Andrew of Yugoslavia (1929–1990), Prince of Yugoslavia

Town twinning

• Villach (Carinthia, Austria), since 2002
• Velden am Wörther See (Carinthia, Austria), since 2004
• Brixen ( South Tyrol , Italy), since 2004

literature

• Guide through Veldes and the surrounding area with 8 collotype postcards. Verlag Otto Fischer, Veldes 1893 ( PDF 5.3 MB ).
• Elisabeth Goller-Profanter: The rule of Velde 1641 to 1803. Dissertation. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck 1984.
• Arnold Suppan : Yugoslavia and Austria 1918–1938. Bilateral foreign policy in the European environment. Publications of the Austrian Institute for East and Southeast Europe, Volume 14. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-7028-0328-9 .
• Gerhard Pilgram , Wilhelm Berger, Gerhard Maurer (Ill.): Looking for the distance. On foot from Carinthia to Trieste. A hiking-travel-reading book . Carinthia, Vienna / Graz / Klagenfurt 2006, ISBN 3-85378-594-8 , pp. 51-61.
• Matjaž Bizjak (Ed.): Srednjeveški urbarji za Slovenijo. Volume 5: Urbarji Briksenske škofije. 1253-1464. (The land register of the Hochstift Brixen). Thesaurus Memoriae, Fontes, Volume 3. Zgodovinski Inšt. Milka Kosa ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana 2006, ISBN 961-6568-43-4 .

Web links

Commons : Bled  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikivoyage: Bled  - travel guide

• Official website
• IECD-Bled School of Management (English)
• John W. Hilder: Nature Cure at Veldes (PDF) In: New York Times , Nov. 3, 1901 (English)
• AACC Alpe Adria Center for Cross-Border Cooperation, EU Future Region South-East, 2006

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Matjaz Bizjak: Urbarji briksenske skofije: 1253–1464; The land register of the Hochstift Brixen.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Zgodovinski Institut Milka Kos ZRC Sazu, Laibach 2006, ISBN 961-6568-43-4 . (= Thesaurus Memoriae, Fontes 3).  
2. ↑ Martin Bitschnau , Hannes Obermair : Tiroler Urkundenbuch, II. Department: The documents on the history of the Inn, Eisack and Pustertal valleys. Vol. 1: Up to the year 1140 . Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 978-3-7030-0469-8 , p. 149-150 .
3. ↑ field. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 9, Leipzig 1735, column 467.
4. ^ Arnold Rikli: Prospect of the naturopathic institute "Mallnerbrunn" near Veldes. Kleinmayer and Bamberg, Laibach 1893. - PDF .
5. ↑ John W. Hilder: Nature Cure at Veldes . (PDF) In: New York Times , November 3, 1901, magazine insert p. 9.
6. ^ Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , Volume 20. Leipzig 1909, p. 9.
7. ^ Arnold Suppan : Yugoslavia and Austria 1918–1938. Bilateral foreign policy in the European environment . ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (= Publications of the Austrian Institute for East and Southeast Europe 14) Verlag für Geschichte u. Politics, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-7028-0328-9 , p. 1196. 
8. ↑ Suppan, p. 269 ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
9. ↑ Suppan, p. 303 ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
10. ↑ Suppan, p. 1196 ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
11. ↑ Suppan, p. 438 ( Memento of the original of December 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
12. ↑ Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service.
13. ↑ The original German country returns home. In: Kärntner Grenzruf , date = 2. May 1941. Retrieved April 9, 2014 .  Quoted on kaernoel.at
14. ^ Report of the office of the representative of the Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of German nationality in the occupied territories of Carinthia and Carniola on the activities from July 1 to September 1, 1941 from September 11, 1941 ( RTF ; 8 kB) and
    minutes of the discussion about the Cooperation with the standstill commissioner for clubs, organizations and associations in the occupied areas of Carinthia and Carniola on June 5, 1941 ( RTF ; 11 kB).
15. ^ Statement by Dr. Helmut Glaser on the activities of the resettlement staff in the occupied areas of Carinthia and Carniola and
    notification of the resettlement staff for the occupied areas of Carinthia and Carniola on its structure dated June 14, 1941 .
16. ↑ Special order of the commander of the Ordnungspolizei Alpenland - Veldes, July 19, 1942. {…} As a measure of atonement, the male population over 15 years is to be shot on the spot and the corpses to be thrown into the fire. The villages are to be destroyed by fire. The remaining population is to be evacuated and taken to the resettlement camp St. Veit an der Save {...} Signed: Brenner, Major General and Commander .
17. ^ Website IEDC-Bled School of Management .
18. ↑ Holidays in Bled with the mobility guarantee of the Alpine Pearls. Retrieved March 24, 2017 . 
19. ^ Homepage of the city of Bled . Retrieved September 1, 2011.
20. ↑ Winter Swimming World Championships 2020