Unveiling Bulgaria: Rila Monastery & Boyana UNESCO Journey

Amazing from start to finish! Amazing coach driver and our tour guide Ludo was incredibly knowledgeable, friendly and made sure the trip was on schedule. Rila monastery is definitely must see when heading to Sofia! Highly recommend!

Very nice experience and well organized trip. They started at 9am exactly and they gave us enough time for each attraction

The tour was good - we got the audioguide one and it was interesting enough. We didn't enter Boyana as it was similar to other we've seen before, but the Rila Monastery was good. I just think 3h in there is too much. It is really small and nothing to do. 2h would be good enough.

The highlight was Boyana Church—although the visit was limited to 8 minutes, the information provided there was meaningful and helpful, and the site itself was remarkable. Unfortunately, the Rila Monastery portion was disappointing. The guide repeated very basic facts and did not provide any deeper historical or cultural context. We were given 30 minutes on-site of useless information and repeated. The guide did not mention the museum or other important areas to visit within the monastery complex, nor offer his company to those areas to pay for tickets.. Additionally, the restroom facilities were unacceptable; knowing this in advance, I would have expected the guide to warn us or suggest alternative options. The monastery is undeniably beautiful, but the tour lacked substance and preparation. With better guidance and clearer information, this experience could have been much improved.

You join other people in a bus to visit the monastery. Yet you are still given enough free time so you do not feel like you are a part of a packaged tour, with a tight schedule on hand. Definitely recommended to do this tour, if you do not want to drive to the location by yourself, or figure out ways to get there by other means, which will cost you quite sometime for sure!

Rila's monastery and Boyana's church are unique places, where beauty, history and spirituality are all over. Zakaria (sorry if misspelled) was our fantastic tour guide, teaching and entertaining us along the way, both in English and Italian. The tour was nice and well organized. When at the monastery, try some warm bread at Restaurant “Valyavitsa”, sooo good. We're glad we booked it and would definitely recommend it!! Grazie!! :)

Very professional organization, guide, driver, skills. The bus got flat tire on the highway, the driver képet the bus stable, drove it to safety. The guide kept communication continously with the tourists about what's happening, the agency sent replacement buses fast. Despite the challanges, timeloss, ect we could finish everything what was planned for that day and understood the beauty of Bulgarian/Ortodox culture very well thanks for the clear storytelling.

Entering The Boyana Church took my breath away. The tempura paintings are not to be missed. The Rila Monastery is stunning. The best thing about this tour is the hike to the cave where the founder of the Monastery lived for 10 years. Very special and sacred site. Lubo was a great tour guide, giving us the highlights at each place.

Good guide very friendly & informative Free Time included in this tour Detail provided was as described Enjoyed the day

We had a great day excursion, where we had the chance to learn a lot of facts and history of Bulgaria. Our professional guide Svet made our day excursion a great experience and everything was very well organized. We learned the history of both Boyana churh and Rila monastery, having also some free time for a hike in Rila. Very convinient day excursion, if you are visiting Sofia for a short weekend as in our case. Absoluteley recommended day tour. Thanks Svete Dimitris!