Monky Business

Another national treasure, shopska salad.

The Rila Monastery is the No. 1 tourist hotspot in all of Bulgaria. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and, like quite a few places in Bulgaria, it has been almost completely destroyed several times. When it was last rebuilt, in 1833, one wonders whether the reconstruction was the result of the people’s pious devotion to the Christian faith or an expression of the resurgent Bulgarian national spirit that was leading to the country’s final liberation from the Turks.

John and his dark beer

Rila Monastery is about two hours’ drive south of Sofia, on the main road that leads from Sofia to Greece. As with most things that have been recently repaired in Bulgaria, EU funds have been used to upgrade the road, so driving the main highway south of Sofia is a pleasure. Then things get a bit narrow and twisty and dramatic once you leave the main road and turn off for Rila, heading up into the mountains.

Lunch was at a very good (and reasonably priced) restaurant in the village of Rila. Shkembe Chorba was the soup and then I had something rather unmemorable. Peter had another shopska salad and John had some most interesting dark beer, a sort of Bulgarian Guinness.

After our very filling lunch, we pressed on to the monastery, climbing all the way. When we finally arrived, we parked and walked through the main entrance. Surrounded by mountains and forests, the setting is very dramatic, but it does not really prepare you for the sight that is waiting for you. 

The Church of the Nativity is an amazingly beautiful building, set in a stripy, multi-level courtyard of white and black. (Alas, you are not allowed to go up the stairs to look down on the church from the top floor of the courtyard.) Inside, it is the usual combination of wall paintings, darkness, candles and gold paint. (Why is it that most of the aged and emaciated figures in Bulgarian wall paintings seem to be suffering from anorexia or jaundice or maybe both?)

So is Rila Monastery still a monastery or is it just a tourist attraction? Well, we did see a few black-cassocked monks around the place, but they were definitely outnumbered by the camera-clicking tourists. In the UK, lots of cathedrals charge for admission, although some of them pretend that it is a "donation". Because it still seems to be a working monastery and there are a few monks in situ, we did not have to pay an entrance fee at Rila monastery, although we did have to pay five leva to park the car. It is strange. We did not have to pay to see the rocks at Belogradchik or to go kayaking on Lake Iskar. The two excellent walking tours of Sofia were also bez platna. In Bulgaria, it really does seem to be the case that the best things in life are free.