Rila Monastery... a MUST visit while in Bulgaria! Rila is only a 2 hour bus drive from Sofia and although it took a lot of time to r...

Rila Monastery

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Rila Monastery... a MUST visit while in Bulgaria!
Rila is only a 2 hour bus drive from Sofia and although it took a lot of time to research how to get there and back on our own I was able to figure it out and was ready to see the beautiful Rila.

Not many people know about the fact that one can actually sleep in Rila Monastery for almost the same amount of money than at the hostel and you get to be in the Monastery when everybody has left... sounded cool to me! 
After the free walking tour I walked the city with Nicole and it took very little convincing to get her to join me to the monastery and spend the night.

Our journey started by taking tram #5 to the West station (Ovcha Kupel) and getting on the one and ONLY "direct" bus to Rila at 10:20am, costing 11leva ($6). I say "direct" because we stopped for like 30 minutes in Rila town and when we were about to leave the driver decided to go a little bit of bus wash!

Ehhhhh... What time is the bus again?!? I don't read Cyrillic! (But I'm smart so I can figure it out!) 
Front entrance of the monastery!



By 1pm we had arrived at the monastery but had to wait until 2pm to check in. At 2pm one priest opened the office and Nicole and I went in to get a room. The priest took our passports and checked us on and proceeded to give us a receipt for 50leva and a key for a room but I immediately jumped! Two different people had told me they had paid 26 for the entire room for two people and he was trying to charge us double. Of course I complained and told them my friends stayed there for 26 and I lied and said my hostel had called (they didn't but they told me it would be no more than 15leva per person.) The priest looked at me and he said that it wasn't correct, I still kept complaining, so he made us "an offer!" He said we could have a room for 20leva each with the bathroom in the corridor. I am not sure if he thought I would say no, but even without asking Nicole I said "ok!" because I didn't want to keep bargaining with the priest.
We paid the 20 each and left... with the same key he had originally given us, so who knows... was he just bluffing about the room with the corridor bathroom?
I'll never know but the room was pretty nice for a monastery, and better than a top bunk, for sure!


As we walked in the monastery from the bus we met one of our roommates from the hostel in Sofia and told us how to get to a cave near by so after dropping our bags off we decided to go find the cave! 

We went down the main road and then found the beginning on a path and both Nicole and I decided to go on the path instead of the street.
What started with a scenery from the sound of music transformed into a non visible path through many muddy and slippery streams. I felt bad for dragging Nicole into this as she was wearing sandals and getting her feet covered in mud!
"Look, there's a path!"

The hills are alive with the sound of muuuusic...



After getting a little lost (many times) and re finding the path we finally got to the cave and it wasn't that impressive and we didn't even know what we were looking at! Thankfully on the way down I met a guy from Sweden who knew the whole history of the area and told me that St Ivan of Rila used to live in the cave. Good! Now I know what the cave was about!




Inside of the Cave




To go back to the monastery Nicole and I decided to make a smart decision and walk on the street! The way back took us about half the time and no with mud!


Back entrance to Rila

Once we got back at the monastery all the tourists had left and we spend way too much time taking pictures! They are all so repetitive!! haha

Picture with tourists




There's Nicole! 



The one advantage of staying overnight at the monastery is that you can go up and down the many floors and explore as you wish. The view from the top was the best one!


Loved the snow capped mountains on the back!






What makes Rila very special are all the beautiful frescos!











how crazy are these paintings? 




One of my favorite pictures, in the morning before going back to Sofia.





What the heck is going on here?!?!

At 8:10 am we took the bus back to Rila town and it felt like out of an episode of Rick Steves! There we were in a Bulgarian bus playing super loud but beautiful Bulgarian music and then we stopped and two jolly Bulgarian grandmas came in laughing and loudly speaking Bulgarian to each other, it was just too great!

From Rila Town we took a bus to Blagoevgrad, waited half an hour and changed to another to Sofia, by 12pm I was seating on the bus on my way to Plovdiv!

More company in the bus!



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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com