After crossing the Bulgarian border at night and spending the whole next day visiting emblematic places in Sofia city in the Day 7 of this Leaving All Behind series, I booked a private bus tour to visit the Bulgaria's most important UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Rila Monastery, together with the Boyana Church, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Ready to take the bus towards Rilska River Valley
I booked the one-day round trip excursion on Traventuria website (around 30 EUR/person, including the private English speaker tour guide) and they were waiting with their minibus close to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral at around 8:30 in the morning, ready to go and make the first stop at Boyana Church, only 10 km. (20 mins.) from Sofia town.
*Anecdote (1): When you arrive to Boyana Church you have to pay an entrance fee (5 EUR/person, not included in the price tour) and you can apply for various discounts; one of those discounts is "large groups discount" (for more than 10 people together), wich thing neither our tour guide told us in advance, nor the window clerk wanted to apply to us for being our group "dispersed around". I tried to gather some part of the group and organize them in some ten people teams to apply for discount (wich was tour guide work but, obviously, they usually act like this to provide the more fees to their national patrimony) but although some were aware of the little trick we were into and accepted to wait and gathering, some others were like ashamed or just in a hurry to visit the church so I finally couldn't manage to settle it up.
*Tip (1): Before arriving the church talk to your group about this and agree to access the complex as a group to apply for a discount.
What makes Boyana Church special are the more than 240 figures depicted in its unique preserved frescoes (some of them restored) from 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th and 19th centuries, considered predecessors of the European Renaissance.
However, it's absolutely prohibited to take any photograph or record any video inside and they actively look for avoiding that to happen, so the only way to see the frescoes is by visiting the church.
Arriving Rila Monastery
After more than hour and a half driving from the church we arrive to a valley crossed by the Rilska River, deep in the Rila Mountains at 1150 meters altitude above sea level, all surrounded by beautiful nature beloging to the Rila National Park.
Before entering the monastery they left us some time to explore the beautiful surroundings of the river and have some breakfast at the Monastery Bakery (located outside the monastery).
When you cross the main entrance hall you realize how big is Bulgaria's most important cultural, historical and architectural monument with the whole complex occupying more than 8800 m2.
YouTube Short inside Rila Monastery:
After destructed by the Ottomans in the middle of 15th century, the monastery was rebuilt thanks to numerous donations, both from Russian Orthodox Church and high society; lately was also restored after a big fire in the 19th century.
Inside of the main temple is buried Tsar Boris III of the kingdom of Bulgaria who is said that was poisoned by Hitler himself in a private meeting they had to discuss Bulgaria's neutrality in World War 2.
*Anecdote (2): After joining the group we entered the main temple wich is free but, again is highly prohibited taking any pictures or recording any videos inside. However was definitely worthy being there and also hearing at all the fun facts the tour guide told us about its history.
Once we finished visiting the main temple we were free to have some lunch and explore some more the surroundings before coming back to Sofia.
For lunch you have couple of restaurants there and we decided to go with Strandjata Restaurant:
In the next article I'm showing you some other interesting places in Sofia as well as the National Art Gallery "Kvadrat 500".
Leaving All Behind series: Day 1, Day 2 (Part 1), Day 2 (Part 2), Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 (Part 1), Day 5 (Part 2), Day 6, Day 7.
Some of the photographs were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G camera and some others are screenshots taken from my videos.
YouTube video recorded with my GoPro Hero 8 camera.
(Audio of the video in Spanish with English captions).
Video recorded at 1440p 60 fps 4:3.
YouTube Short recorded with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G camera.
Image of the route from Sofia to Rila is a screenshot from Google Maps.
Sources on which I relied to give some accurate info about Rila Monastery and Boyana Church: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6).
Rila Monastery Official Website.