Political visits

In its thousand-year history, Bled Castle has welcomed a number of interesting people although not all visits have been documented. The unique location and spectacular view from the castle have impressed many high-ranking statesmen. To name just a few:

• in 1959 the castle was visited by Haile Selassie, the last Emperor of Ethiopia;
• in 1961 it welcomed Josip Broz Tito, President of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia;
• 1962 marks the year when Bled and its castle were visited by German Titov, a Russian cosmonaut who flew the Russian spaceship mission Vostok 2 in 1961;
• in 1965 Habib Bourgiba, President of Tunis, saw the sights of the castle;
• in 1966 Walter Ulbricht, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic, saw the castle on one of his political visits;
• in 1969 Giuseppe Saragat came to Bled during his presidency of the Italian Republic from 1964 to 1971;
• in 1970 the castle welcomed another visit by Tito, this time in the company of the communist dictator and President of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescue;  
• in 1972 Jean-Bedel Bokassa, Emperor of the then Central African Empire visited Bled;
• in 1975 Anvar Sadat, President of Egypt, joined the company of important visitors to Bled Castle;
• in 1985 the castle welcomed Chancellor of Germany, Dr Helmut Kohl.

Since Slovenia's independence, Bled Castle has hosted a number of important state visits, including:

• in 2001 a visit by US First Lady Laura Bush, accompanied by Ms Štefka Kučan, First Lady of Slovenia;
• in 2002 Bled Castle was visited by 16 presidents of states in the framework of the Ninth Meeting of Presidents of the Central European States: Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Federal Republic Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Slovenia. That was the largest and the most important multilateral meeting of such a level ever to have taken place in Bled;
• authors who gathered in Bled at two PEN Congresses, namely in 1965 and in 2004, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the International PEN Club;
• in 2006 the visit of Albert II, Prince of Monaco, stirred a lot of attention;
• in August 2007, many high-ranking European politicians and politicians of the countries of the Former Yugoslavia met at Bled Castle upon an invitation from President of Slovenia Janez Janša and Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Dimitrij Rupel;
• During Slovenia's EU presidency (Jan-June 2008) Bled Castle was visited by many ministers and other high representatives of EU states.