Day 56: The Rila Monastery

Well, we definitely saw the monastery today, and let me just say that they day was full of surprises and unplanned results!

Here’s the thing: we knew we wanted to go to the monastery since we got here, but the guided tours advertised in the pamphlets stated that the English tour only goes on Sundays. Unfortunately for us, we have to leave Bulgaria on Sunday morning at 5:30 am so we wouldn’t make the tour. In a last-ditch resort effort, we asked the very helpful front desk person at the hotel. The woman who was working didn’t speak the best English, but eventually we got our intents across. She set up a tour guide for us for Saturday morning, and he would take us there and back in a car. Splendid!

We got up early so that we were ready for our guide to pick us up at 9:00am. We went down to the front desk and asked where we should wait for the tour guide. It was a different woman working this morning and she starting going on about the bus that leaves the Center station at 10:30. We stopped her and said we had organized a tour… it was very complicated, but eventually she told us that the best thing we could do was wait outside on the sidewalk.

The man was on time and introduced himself as… Kamen, or Carmen, or something. But he wasn’t a tour guide. And he definitely wasn’t the best driver, either. Oh, we didn’t know any of this at the time and we were very happy to get in the car and started asking questions about Bulgaria. He did tell us quite a bit about their history and culture and everything while driving very fast through the streets of Sophia and out into the Bulgarian countryside. We noticed, even more than before, the sad state of the architecture and industry here. Rob and I saw factory upon factory, empty and decrepit and rusting. We did see a nuclear reactor, one of those old school ones with the two inverted conical silos, which was so weird. After the fall of communism, the government stopped paying for the super-factories built obscenely large to show the West their communist superiority. So the factories closed down and all the machinery was sold off, leaving the buildings just sitting barren and abandoned.


The car ride to the monastery took a little over two hours and saw us through the Bulgarian countryside, small, crippled-looking towns and villages (where our driver got a speeding ticket… serves him right), and finally up a winding road into the Rila Mountains. Our driver made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t be joining us at the monastery and that we could call his cell phone when we were ready to go. That frustrated us as we had been told that we would receive a guided tour of the grounds. It didn’t turn out to be completely necessary to have had a tour guide, but it would have been interesting to learn a little bit of insider information about it. We discovered that there was a monastery museum, but it had closed for the winter season on October 1rst… and it was October 2nd. I’m sure the museum would have been very interesting and provide us with the information that a guide may have provided, but alas, it was just not in the cards.



The grounds were very pretty, however. From what I understand, Rila is still a functioning monastery and people from the Orthodox faith make regular visits to the church there as a sort of religious pilgrimage. The outer buildings are quite stunning, and since it is a UNESCO world heritage site, I’m sure the buildings have enjoyed regular and meticulous upkeep. I also had here my first experience using a hole-in-the-ground toilet, which I had not been expecting and was a little thrown off by. I suppose there isn’t much need for proper toilets at the monastery? It was an interesting squatting experience, to say the least, but when you gotta go, you gotta go, right?

We took a walk about the grounds taking pictures and noting the stray dogs and cats that lay about like the grounds have always been their home – and maybe they have. We also spotted a little hummingbird sucking nectar out of some wildflowers, and that was cool. The outside of the church had been brightly painted with allegories and icons from both Biblical and Historical viewpoints. In some places, the paintings seemed almost like storyboards, portraying the lore of the Sainted or allegories from the Bible. There was a surprising amount of tourists at the site, which I supposed shouldn’t have surprised me since it is such a popular religious destination. We noticed that a lot of the people here were Bulgarian, so we figured it’s the sort of place that people make regular yearly or monthly trips to. When we finally entered the church, we could see why.

As in most of the churches we’ve been to in Bulgaria, we weren’t permitted to take photographs inside. However, it was full of people lighting prayer candles and standing in lines to be blessed by the priest and kiss some sort of relic or icon or something. The innards of the church were really quite beautiful, though. Again, much like the other Orthodox churches we’d seen, it was richly decorated in golds and reds and blues with gold and silver plating and murals all over the walls. The air was thick with the smell of incense and the reverent hush that filtered through the vaulted corridors was hard to ignore. We spent about 20 minutes wandering through the smallish church, studying the painted walls and watching the patrons carrying out their religious rites.




Afterward, we finished our survey of the grounds and then headed up a stony path to the restaurant just outside the walls of the monastery. Here we ordered a little potato salad, a couple beers, some bean soup, fries, spiced chicken and house-made sausage. We assumed from the prices that it would be small servings and we’d just share the few bites between the two of us. My, how naïve and mislead we were. The food that arrived at our table shortly after placing our order was not only GENEROUSLY portioned, but also wonderfully tasty! It was simple, uncomplicated food, like what your mom would make… and we barely finished it! The best part was the bill – 24lev. For ALL that food and 2 pints of beer. That comes out to about $16.50 CND. It was unbelievably cheap for such tasty food. If ever you go to the Rila Monastery, make sure to stop for lunch at the restaurant!



After lunch, we called our driver who picked us up and sped like a man being chased by an avalanche all the way back to Sofia. And this was after the speeding ticket. Needless to say, Rob and I weren’t very impressed by his reckless driving, especially through the city streets during afternoon traffic, but we managed to make it home in one piece with a cool experience under our belts. It was also a great opportunity to see outside the city perimeters.

Tomorrow morning we get up at 5:00am to be driven to the airport to take our flight back to Amsterdam. We stay the afternoon in Amsterdam airport and then jump on our flight to Istanbul. Very much looking forward to 9 days in Istanbul, especially since we’re staying in a place with our own kitchen! It gets monotonous and expensive eating out all the time!