Lake Bohinj, Slovenia

Hotel Bohinj

Price per night from$171.28

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR165.78), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Hotel Bohinj Photos

Style

Reboot camp

Setting

Lakeside amid the Alps

Explore

More hotels in Lake Bohinj More hotels in Slovenia

We’re apologising to your other Smith half in advance: any stay at mountain spa escape Hotel Bohinj will cause the heart to stray… and fall for the Alpine beauty of mountain-fringed Lake Bohinj. This overhauled boutique hotel shares its passion for place through seasonal, local plates in the all-day restaurant; an all-Slovenian wine list in the cellar bar, and storied decor diffused in thoughtful details that speak to the area’s pastoral heritage. Spa therapies themed around Alpine wellness are a seduction worth surrendering to: a devil-may-care fling among the surrounding meadows and mountains is sure to follow… 

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A welcome drink and chef's dessert at the restaurant

Facilities

Photos Hotel Bohinj facilities

Need to know

Rooms

62, including one suite.

Check–Out

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More details

Rates include a locally sourced buffet breakfast of daily-baked breads, pastries, cheese and cold meats, fresh fruit, yoghurt and cereals.

Also

The ground-floor restaurant and spa are wheelchair-friendly and there’s a number of accessible rooms suitable for wheelchair use.

Please note

The hotel is building new accommodation and while every precaution has been taken to ensure disruption is kept to a minimum, please be aware that noise may travel.

At the hotel

Mezzanine lounge; museum; boutique (selling merchandise and local goods); ski and bike storage room; outdoor yoga platform; paid laundry service; free daily spa access (up to two hours), free WiFi throughout. In rooms: LCD TV, minibar, coffee maker, free tea and coffee, and local, natural bath products by Prija.

Our favourite rooms

Comfort double rooms at Hotel Bohinj are more generous in size than their Classic counterparts: opt for a balcony in either category to maximise your room’s panoramic potential. Family suites bring together adjoining rooms with two bathrooms. Top-of-house is the apartment-like Superior Suite, which has superlative views and its own Jacuzzi.

Poolside

In front of the spa where the garden rolls towards the lake is a modest oblong pool (adults only) with whirlpool jets that’s ideal for refreshing dips (rather than laps) in spectacular Alpine scenery.

Spa

A larch-lined warren of restorative wellness to the rear of the hotel, the adults-only spa is a highlight of any stay at Hotel Bohinj. Its design is compartmentalised – a space of corridors and cocooning zones of calm, comprising Finnish and Turkish saunas, a relaxation lounge with views down to the lake, a garden-facing terrace and spa pool, and two treatment rooms (bring your own tunes to stream through Bluetooth speakers to accompany your massage or facial). All the senses are catered for here: there’s an ice fountain, steam room, and experience showers; to reach the spa’s refreshment station, you pad barefoot across a textured, reflexology walkway. Downtime in the indoor lounge deploys chromotherapy and salt crystals to promote healing as well as rest. Two hours’ access a day is free to hotel guests, but you’ll want to book in for a massage or body treatment: our tip is to opt for one that includes time on the zero-gravity heated water-bed for a cosseting sense of weightlessness.

Packing tips

More swimwear than you’d think: even in winter, you’ll want a rotation of togs for time in the spa.

Also

For those who prefer their spa time à deux, a spa suite can be hired for exclusive use, including the Finnish sauna. Or book a ‘floating breakfast’ and enjoy the first meal of the day surrounded by mountain scenery, wallowing in the outdoor spa pool.

Pet‐friendly

Dogs are allowed in ground-floor rooms for a fee of €15 a pet each night. See more pet-friendly hotels in Lake Bohinj.

Children

Welcome, although not in the adults-only spa. Little Smiths between the ages of two and 12 are charged as children; Comfort rooms sleep up to three, and Family Suites connect two ensuite doubles.

Sustainability efforts

There are reminders of Hotel Bohinj’s environmental responsibilities visible through every window at the hotel, which looks across the lake to the Triglav national park. It’s no surprise, then, that the hotel’s 2021 overhaul was plotted and delivered with sustainability in mind – the contractors were local, as were the natural materials chosen for the makeover, which features Slovenian stone, larch timber and marble. The renovations incorporate energy- and water-conserving measures: an efficient heating and cooling convection system; rain harvesting, LED lighting and sensors. Parking spaces out front are fitted with EV charging stations. You won’t find any single-use plastics at Hotel Bohinj: even the bath amenities are local and Earth-kind, thanks to natural-cosmetics brand Prija’s recycled packaging. Community engagement didn’t stop with the building works, either: wine tastings, Sunday farmers’ markets and a calendar of live music are all collaborations with local suppliers.

Food and Drink

Photos Hotel Bohinj food and drink

Top Table

The views windowside are tempting, but there’s a cosy, more intimate feel to tables on the far side of the room nearer the kitchen.

Dress Code

An outdoorsy stay such as Hotel Bohinj needs no formal glamour: mountain-ready threads are fine by day – if you want to switch the ski or hiking pants for something more glittering by evening, a glamorous top with casual trousers is pitch perfect.

Hotel restaurant

Off the lobby, Hotel Bohinj’s restaurant is an all-day dining spot, its larch-lined, airy dining room, flooded with light from floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the front of the hotel. The space is partitioned by a shelf-wall dotted with plants. Breakfast is a buffet affair that’ll have you boomeranging from table to counter for fresh fruit, pastries, bread, cereals and yoghurt, plus top-ups of coffee and juice. A menu that changes with the seasons and showcases local produce in artfully presented plates caters to lunchtime and evening diners, accompanied by a broad choice of Slovenian wines.

Hotel bar

There are free-flowing lounge spaces off the lobby, including cow-hide-dressed tub chairs and tables by reception, a mezzanine lounge overlooking the entrance, and tables in the restaurant that double as drinking spots. To one side of reception, a secluded lounge has a checkerboard wall of traditional oven-doors turned into an installation and is a cosy spot for coffees or apéritifs. Downstairs, the Club is Hotel Bohinj’s dedicated drinks lounge – open till 2am and the venue for a calendar of live music and DJ sets (Saturday nights are a highlight). A cellar wall of resting bottles indicates the Club’s other key passion – wine: this is where group and individual tastings of the grape and the good are held with a sommelier, introducing the hotel’s all-Slovenian vintages (in summer, sessions migrate to tastings around the outdoor fire pit). 

Last orders

The kitchen closes at 10pm; the Bar Lounge closes at 11pm, and the Club is open 9pm until 2am.

Room service

Between 7am and 10pm, you can order food and drink to your room when the restaurant is open.

Location

Photos Hotel Bohinj location
Address
Hotel Bohinj
Ribčev Laz 45
Bohinjsko Jezero
4265
Slovenia

Hotel Bohinj is named for the lake it overlooks, surrounded by the Julian Alps with views of the Triglav national park in western Slovenia. The hotel is on the lake’s eastern shores in one of the area’s largest towns, Ribčev Laz.

Planes

Ljubljana is the nearest international airport (Austria’s regional hub, Klagenfurt is equi-distant) around an hour’s drive from the hotel; or you could fly in to Trieste, Italy, which is two hours and 15 minutes from Hotel Bohinj by road. The hotel can arrange private transfers from Ljubljana airport from €200 each-way.

Trains

The nearest railway station is Bohinjska Bistrica, a 10-minute drive from the hotel; private transfers are available from €25 each-way.

Automobiles

There’s free parking in front of the hotel and electric-vehicle charging stations.

Worth getting out of bed for

Outdoors-lovers are drawn to Lake Bohinj for the Alpine trails and lake-based adventures in summer, and snowsports in winter. On the north shore of the lake, Triglav National Park is a forested wilderness crowned by rugged limestone crags – none higher than the eponymous Mount Triglav. Canoe or take a boat tour of the lake; try stand-up paddleboarding, or kayak the rapids of the Sava Bohinjka river. Within the park, Vogel is the area’s diminutive winter resort in Gorenjska: it has a handful of lifts, piste-side dining spots and 22 kilometres of runs. South-west of the lake, the hamlet of Ukanc is your gateway to the dramatic gorge and torrent that is Savica waterfall. Mostnica’s gorge and falls offer similarly dramatic scenery. To get a broader understanding of the geography, there are a handful of breathtaking viewpoints worth tracking down: the first is accessible by cable car at Vogel, summiting Brown Rock; or Vodnik – a 30-minute ascent from Koprivnik – with good views of the upper and lower valleys; the third is less of a climb on a well-marked trail at Peč. Without leaving the grounds of Hotel Bohinj, there’s convivial entertainment on offer: wine tasting around the outdoor fire pit in summer; live music weekly alfresco, and a Sunday farmers’ market where local producers showcase cheese, honey, wine, ceramics and more luggage-filling treasure. And be sure to reserve a little downtime for the spa – for treatments, exclusive use of its private spa suite, or a memorable start to the day with a floating breakfast in the spa pool. 

Local restaurants

Terrace tables at Triglav Restaurant in Ribčev Laz overlook the lake and are a fittingly scenic backdrop for Kristjan Gajski’s equally-eye-catching plates, curated in seasonal three-, four- or five-course set menus. Accomplished rustic fare is the preserve of in-the-valley Alpine hut the Štrud’l Inn: expect hearty platters of cheese and charcuterie, plus proudly carb-centric plates that work wonders with potatoes, buckwheat and barley. A 10-minute walk from Hotel Bohinj, smoked venison and freshly caught trout are typical of the hunters’ spoils you’ll find at Lovec Restaurant (at Hotel Kristal). 

Local cafés

Lively burger joint Foksner is a Ribčev Laz hangout with staying power, suggesting good things about their stacked patties and convivial setting. 

Local bars

A sea of parasols shades terrace tables at music venue and bar Karakter in Ribčev Laz, which serves a light menu of street-food-style dishes, as well as gin from its namesake distillery. There’s a shack feel to the sturdy benches and tables on the covered terrace at Okrepčevalnica Jezero-Baza, which is as popular for its ice-cream and pizza as its cold pots of beer.

Reviews

Photos Hotel Bohinj reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this lakeside mountain lodge in Slovenia and unpacked their bottles of refošk and jars of local honey, a full account of their spa-hotel break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hotel Bohinj in the Julian Alps…

‘Well, that’s an eyesore,’ said nobody ever about Lake Bohinj. Slovenia’s largest natural lake is a tranquil, teal-hued beauty, backed by chiselled Julian Alps, including Mount Triglav. And yet a beautiful backdrop will only get you so far… An extensive 2021 overhaul has transformed Hotel Bohinj into a luxe spa stay with eco credentials. Contemporary Slovenian interiors are curated with natural, local materials and tell the story of the ‘four brave men’ who first climbed Mount Triglav (they’re a hotel motif and have a statue in the grounds), but also of the area’s pastoral heritage – through locally sourced, seasonal plates in the restaurant, through an all-Slovenian wine list at the basement Club, and with trompe l'oeil hay-racks in the corridors, which create a sense of walking through ancient barns. Even the spa takes its wholesome cue from the Alps, focusing on nature-inspired treatments, water-based therapies and championing rest. Lawns that run down to the lake are home to a fire pit and double as a venue for a Sunday market, wine tastings, and live music in summer: this is a storied stay with personality as well as looks.

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Price per night from $166.85