Apartma Sarah's Happy Place

Sarah's Happy Place is in Partizanska cesta, inside the built-up fabric of Bled, at 517 metres of altitude and around seven hundred metres from Grajska beach, the one below the castle crag. The castle itself is nine hundred metres away, the sports hall one kilometre and the island in the lake a little over three. It is a position to use on foot: you step out and within ten minutes you are on the lakeside, without having to move the car, which meanwhile stays in the property's free private parking.

The accommodation is a whole apartment for two people, with one bedroom, a living room, a kitchen fitted with utensils, a fridge and a coffee machine, and a bathroom with shower and hairdryer. Bed linen and towels are included, there is air conditioning, the wifi is free and from the house you see the mountains. What sets this address apart from the many apartments in Bled is the decorator's hand: the host has chosen a precise palette, dusty pink and brass, with velvet sofas, a round table in light wood, flowered rugs, backlit mirrors and a dark marble wall in the bathroom. The bedroom is set in a niche raised a few steps above the living room, a solution that gains space but which anyone with walking difficulties must bear in mind. In the main bathroom there are a corner tub with gold taps and the washing machine, and in the house there is a wine cabinet.

On the rules front, this is an avowedly child-free house. The booking portal, under child policies, writes that children are not allowed and specifies that no cots or extra beds are available. The minimum age in figures, though, is published by no one: the property has no official website on which to check it and the portal gives no threshold. The only number that appears, the eighteen years, concerns the minimum age for check-in, that is, for putting the booking in your name, and is not to be confused with the age of the guests. The source of this entry is therefore the portal, and anyone travelling with a teenage child must ask for written confirmation before booking.

The rest of the rules go in the same direction: there is no smoking, no parties or events are held, the house is not available for stag or hen gatherings, pets are not allowed and quiet applies between 22.00 and 06.00. These are conditions that explain the kind of stay well: a couple who want to sleep, not a group who want to celebrate.

Bled lends itself to every season. From here the circuit of the lake, the climb to the castle and the walk to Ojstrica and Osojnica for the photograph from above all start on foot; by car you reach the Vintgar gorge in a few minutes and Lake Bohinj and the entrance to the Triglav National Park in about half an hour. Ljubljana airport is thirty-four kilometres away.

It suits two people who want a carefully kept, central house with a kitchen, and who appreciate avowedly theatrical furnishing. It suits less anyone looking for alpine plainness or anyone who needs space on a single level.