During the drive to Rila Monastery, our driver suddenly stopped on the opposite side of the road and said, "Paranomic view... take picture?" I was a little stunned how he just suddenly stopped. As you can see, he just parked his car on the road... so oncoming cars literally had to move to the next lane to keep on moving.... As a result, we did get a honked at a few times while taking pictures.

Enroute, he stopped at an old church, which has literally been abandoned but used to belong to the monastery.

Once again... if only I knew what this said...

Walking around inside... obviously no one has been here for a while, judging from the amount of the undergrowth.

Frescoes from inside the chapel


Once again, I don't know why the doors were so short then!

The drive along the mountains was really quite breathtaking... love the autumn colours. Trust me, I took more than just these few pictures.

Before the Monastery we went to visit this cave where the 1st monk of Rila Monastery was said to live at. Bulgarians have a saying that if you can climb out of the cave, your wish will come through. It was about a 20 mins hike up. Not too strenuous, but I guess we took longer than usual coz the two HK ladies kept stopping to take pictures along the way.

A small chapel beside the cave

Entrance to the cave and in between the layers of rock, you can see the little prayers that people have written on pieces of paper and stuck them in between.


Altar inside the cave. I will say that the exit of the cave at the top is extremely narrow, and I knew that if I wiggled and squeezed my way through I probably could have made it out, but looking at all the dirt around it, I decided that it wasn't really worth it, much to amusement of our driver (who btw was a big sized man) who kept asking to go through the cave, go through the cave!!!!!!!

Inside the small chapel beside the cave.

haha... notice the bottles of beer on the table....

Sofia is a small city and doable in 1 and a half days max. So for one day, I took a trip up to the Rila Mountains, and this was an awesome trip. The scenery and the monastery itself was quite breath taking. Autumn colours are really very beautiful :) But first, pictures of the Rila Monastery and a bit more about it.
The Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila, better known as the Rila Monastery (Рилски манастир, Rilski manastir) is the largest and most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. It is situated in the northwestern Rila Mountains, 117 km (73 mi) south of the capital Sofia in the deep valley of the Rilska River. The monastery is named after the famous Bulgarian saint and hermit Ivan of Rila. The monastery complex, regarded as one of the foremost masterpieces of Bulgarian National Revival architecture, was declared a national historical monument in 1976 and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
Entrance to the Monastery is FREE, except for the museum. But honestly, the main attraction is the Monastery itself.

History of the Monastery as written on the wall, and rules concerning entry to the Monastery.

Inside the Monastery. As you can see, the interior is really beautiful, so went a little crazy taking pictures here.


Church frescoes on the outside of the church walls. No pictures allowed inside unfortunately.

I don't know if they're repainted or something, but the colours are very vibrant and lots of detailing on the frescoes.

Monastery courtyard

In the Monastery, there are small souvenier shops all around. I must say that buying gifts in Bulgaria was quite cheap, and I sent quite a few postcards back to my friends this time. There's also a post office located in the monastery itself, which makes things handy. Have no idea about how reliable Bulgarian post is, so hopefully the postcards get to their rightful destinations.





These paintings looked like a biblical comic strip of some story, but too bad I can't read Bulgarian (again!) coz I would have loved to know what the story was.



Tried Bulgarian style pork chops with mushrooms for lunch. Super tasty, but I must say that the cuisine here was rather salty. But anyhow, Salt is an important ingredient for flavour :) I must say though that after living in Europe for a bit, I've become rather used to tipping or just even rounding up my bill to the nearest dollar and leaving it. I noticed how different my mentality was during this trip as there happened to be two HK old ladies on the trip as well. I think that they were quite brave for travelling alone around Eastern europe, though I felt a bit used at the end of the day, as they relied on me for translating everything (even to the point of copying what I ordered for lunch, and asking me to book their plane tickets around Europe to back home for them to HK). Anyhow, when we were paying for lunch, I put the money I owed + tip down on the table, and the old lady actually wanted to take my tip away. Luckily I stopped her in time and explained that it was a service charge (she didn't understand "tip") which I kinda felt was necessary since the waiters were quite pleasant and the ladies were kinda stinge about their food (They ordered one main to share between the two of them). One of them actually sounded quite well travelled, as she kept on talking to me the whole time about her travels around Europe and the rest of the world, so I was quite surprised that she hadn't caught on to the concept of tipping yet. I guess I've become rather sensitive to service staff since living here... and as stinge as I am... I do try to leave a little service especially if service charge was not included in the bill... but oh well...

Communist monument under construction

Ministry of Agriculture building in the distance...

Typical Bulgarian streets.... very different from most of Europe.... many buildings looked like they badly needed some renovation

Occasionally, while walking on the streets, these western "lookalike" stores pop up. There were so many Italian coffee joints that it was like wow. I did try Bulgarian coffee though, and warning, it was super strong. I drank it in the afternoon and it actually kept me wide awake all through the early morning. And, it has a really unique taste to it too. The texture is really thin but really really strong stuff.

Bulgarian style gyros... with fries inside.... Still pretty tasty though..


Court of Justice

Ice cream cart... so similar to the Turkish types.... Sofia had so many bits and pieces that reminded me of Turkey, and yet, the Bulgarians seemed to speak more fondly of the Russians than the Turks....


I think this was the Serdika: Sredets Fortress

Sofia University

Hostel Mostel: The hostel which I stayed at. They had a pretty good deal one night in a dorm for only 24 leva which included free breakfast and dinner. So most nights, i actually stayed in and ate dinner in the hostel, despite it being pasta every night. The hostel had a pretty friendly vibe to it too. The staff were super friendly and helpful, though some were a bit crazy (constantly cracking jokes). There was a good mix of people from old to young here... so got to talk to a good mix of people.