Unveiling Bulgaria: Rila Monastery & Boyana UNESCO Journey

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!

Full day tour to Rila Monastery and Boyana Church was perfect! Very well organized. Our guide, Liubomir, made sure we were all well informed of what to expect for the day. He kept us on schedule and provided great information at the appropriate times. Could not have asked for a better experience. Highly recommend this tour company and our guide, Liub!

This was a good tour to two amazing must see sites. Our guide Hristo was great and gave us tons of really interesting information. The driver Mitya was also good and friendly. Really enjoyed it. Less positively, and I know I only booked the tour the day before, but it would have been nice to get the info earlier than 19:00 the night before, specifically because you need cash to pay for Boyana and change to use the toilets at Rila. Also some thought could be given to disabled people. Going was fine we got there early and sat near the front. On the way back the people who had been on the optional tour had taken all the seats at the front which made for an unpleasant and uncomfortable drive back.

Nice trip to the monastery. Trip incudes a stop at the Boyana church (highly recommended if you haven't seen it) and an optional hike to the cave where the hermit saint whose life inspired the creation of the monastery lived. It's not very long but there is quite a climb, so it may not be for everyone -- but is definitely worth it if you can make it.

Took this tour yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised at how well organized the tour was overall. Our guide Lubo was on top of everything, providing excellent commentary about each site and Bulgaria in general. He was precise with times, managing different guest’s expectations well. Our driver was one of the best bus drivers I’ve ever had - and I’ve done many bus tours around the world! Thank you for a smooth, safe trip! I agree with other reviewers that three hours onsite is really too much, but that accommodates the clients taking the hike as well. It was a gorgeous day, so I found various shaded areas to sit, rest and reflect, and ended up really enjoying my time there. Thank you for a great day tour, definitely recommend!

Extraordinary experience since The Ryla Monastery is a masterpiece of architecture that should be visited while visiting Bulgaria. The tour guide was very passionate about the history of Bulgaria. He was also very polite, and accommodating.

We had our tour of Rila Monastery and Boyana Church in February 2025 at 9 am. The day before we got all the information of this so it was easy in the morning. When we first got to the meeting point, there were 3 tour buses. You just say what company you are with and then they point you to the right bus. Our tour guide was Lubdomir. The first stop was Boyana church, spent about 40 minutes here, in total we had 22 ish people on the tour so we had to go inside the church in 2 groups. Also it was extra payment for Boyana Church (approximately 5 EUR per person) but this was communicated the day before. After that we left for Rila Monastery. We got there at 12 pm. You had the choice to leave at 1:30 pm to go to a local restaurant where you can pay via card or leave at 2:45 pm from the monastery, the choice was yours which was nice. There was a bakery and some souvenirs outside of the monastery where the local breakfast pastry bread was 1 LEV. After we got driven back to Sofia and finished the tour around 4:45 pm. Solid tour, felt like we had an ample amount of time, nice coach and solid guide.

A good experience in Rila Monastery. The guide was good and provided a lot of information along the way. Driver was great too.