Lake Bohinj, the biggest and the calmest

The panoramic boat and the walk back

Two electric boats, the Zlatorog and the Triglavska roža, cross between Ribčev Laz and Ukanc from April to early November; the 2026 season ended on 1 November. You can go there and back or, better, cross by boat and walk back along one of the shores. Fares and boarding points are in the table. Seats are limited and in autumn some departures fill up with groups, so buy online. In fog, strong wind or high water, trips may be delayed or cancelled.

Where to swim in Lake Bohinj

There are two official bathing areas, both inside the national park. Fužina Bay runs from St John’s church to the end of the eastern shore, and Ukanc covers a stretch of shore at the far end. ARSO, the environment agency, tests the water every two weeks between mid-June and the end of August. In summer the surface reaches 24°C.

In hot, dry summers there have been algal blooms in some spots. Water quality has stayed within limits, but Tourism Bohinj asks people not to swim where greenish or brownish clumps or slime can be seen, and to keep dogs on a lead and away from the algae, without letting them drink. Dogs aren’t allowed in the bathing areas, and nobody swims in the park’s high mountain lakes.

On the shore: St John’s church

At the eastern end, by the stone bridge at Ribčev Laz, stands the Church of St John the Baptist, built before 1300. It’s one of Bohinj’s best-known photographic subjects, and inside are frescoes from the 13th to 16th centuries, a white devil beside Cain that Jean-Paul Sartre asked to see when he visited Bohinj in the 1960s, and three St Christophers painted in successive layers around 1300, 1400 and 1530.

The south shore is an easy walk to Ukanc, where you’ll find the Vogel cable car and the road to the Savica waterfall. Cycling along the north shore, under the cliffs, has been banned since 2021. Above that shore, Vogar is a classic viewpoint with a mountain hut. If the lake freezes in winter, less common than it was, people skate carefully and at their own risk. And all of this is part of Triglav National Park, so the park’s rules apply from the water’s edge. If you’re going in July or August, Slovenia in summer covers what’s worth knowing about the season.

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What Lake Bohinj is like

The lake fills a basin carved out by glaciers. It’s 4.1 kilometres long, 1.2 wide and up to 45 metres deep, holding some 92.5 million cubic metres of water. Tourism Bohinj tells an old local joke that it would fit in a single bucket, if the bucket were big enough. The bed shelves steeply with hardly any shallows, and only a tenth of the lake is less than 10 metres deep.

The water is renewed three times a year. Most of it arrives via the Savica river, which rises at the waterfall of the same name, and more than a third comes from karst springs under the surface along the north shore. It leaves by the Jezernica, one of the country’s shortest rivers, which after about a hundred metres meets the Mostnica and becomes the Sava Bohinjka. After heavy rain the level can rise by more than three metres. At least 16 species of fish live here, among them lake trout and zlatovščica, the golden lake trout prized in local cooking.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Lake Bohinj and pick one that fits your day.

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