Two hours from Sofia the country turns into monasteries and mountains.
Which Rila Monastery day trip leaves early enough to beat the coaches. What the Seven Lakes hike costs once the chairlift is counted. Whether Plovdiv is a day or a night. Reviews of every tour you can book in Bulgaria.
A cathedral morning, a cellar, the sandstone towers, a first day on snow.
Four bookings that carry a first week in Bulgaria, what each one costs and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningSofia Highlights 2 Hour Sightseeing Walking TourNevsky, the Roman ruins under the metro station and the yellow cobbles, on foot in two hours.
02The early eveningWine Tasting in Heart of SofiaBulgarian wine is mavrud and melnik, not merlot. A cellar in the centre is the fastest way to learn the difference.
03The long day westFull-Day Belogradchik Rocks and Belogradchik Fortress from SofiaSandstone towers a hundred metres high with a fortress built into them, three hours from the capital.
04The day on snowPrivate Ski or Snowboard TuitionBorovets sits an hour from Sofia, so a beginner lesson fits into a city trip without a transfer day.
Almost every famous thing in Bulgaria is a day trip from one city.
Sofia sits inside two hours of a UNESCO monastery, a Roman theatre and a glacial lake basin. Four kinds of day out, what it costs to sit on each minibus, and which one to give your one free morning to.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Rila Monastery and Boyana Church Full-Day Tour
The monastery dayStriped arcades, Zograf frescoes, usually paired with Boyana Church.
Plovdiv and the Old TownA Roman theatre still in use, then the Revival houses above it.
The Seven Lakes hikeChairlift to 2,100 metres, then a ridge walk past all seven.
Bachkovo and Asen’s FortressThe second monastery, the cliff chapel and a Rhodope lunch.
All 111 tours that start in Sofia →
Sofia hides its best centuries under the pavement.
A Roman street runs beneath the metro station, a Communist party house stands at the end of the boulevard, and Vitosha mountain starts where the trams stop. Three days here is not too many.
Sofia for the day trips, Plovdiv for the evenings, the Pirin for the snow.
A capital under a mountain, the oldest inhabited city in Europe, two ski towns three hours apart, and a Black Sea coast with a walled peninsula on it. Six places to sleep, and the best day out from each.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Bulgaria.
The whole Bulgarian catalogue →Mostly minibuses leaving Sofia at eight, one walking tour and one wine cellar. Here is what earns each of them the slot.
1
Rila Monastery and Boyana Church Full-Day Tour
Spend about eight hours visiting Rila Monastery in the mountains and Sofia’s small Boyana Church. Expect a 40-minute monastery tour, 2.5 hours of free time, and only 10 minutes inside Boyana Church. Guides such as Maria, Ina, Vasil, and Tuni have led especially well-received departures, though language and guide arrangements can vary.
From · $24
Read our review →
2
Communist Walking Tour of Sofia
from $21
3
Admission Ticket to the Museum of Illusions in Sofia
from $17
4
Wine Tasting in Heart of Sofia
from $36
5
Sofia Highlights 2 Hour Sightseeing Walking Tour
from $19
6
Day tour to Skopje, North Macedonia – Small Group
from $95
7
Group Day Trip from Sofia
from $22
8
Rila Monastery and 7 Rila Lakes Self-Guided Shared Trip from Sofia
from $54
Bulgaria is the cheapest lift pass in Europe, and the lessons are in English.
The Pirin gondola above Bansko and the Rila slopes at Borovets run from about mid-December into April. Kit hires by the day, instructors teach in English, and a beginner week here costs what a long weekend costs in the Alps.
Bulgarian wine is older than the bottle it comes in.
Thracians were pressing grapes on this soil three thousand years ago, and the two reds worth crossing a country for, mavrud and melnik, grow almost nowhere else. Taste them in a Sofia cellar, or drive out to the vineyards under the Rhodopes.
Every wine and food day →
A seat on the minibus to a UNESCO monastery costs less than dinner.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The famous monastery day is at the cheap end, which is not what anybody expects.
Walking tours, museum tickets, cellar tastings and the shared minibus to Rila.
Full days out of Sofia: the Seven Lakes, Belogradchik, Plovdiv with a guide, ski tuition.
Private cars with a driver, multi-day mountain trips and the cross-border runs.
- 1Transfer servicesfrom $347
- 2Private city walking tour of Sofiafrom $183
- 3Private Day Trip to Boyana Church and Rila Monasteryfrom $193
Three things Bulgaria has and its neighbours do not.
Monasteries and mountains are shared across the Balkans. A lake basin at 2,500 metres, sandstone towers with a fortress inside them, and the longest cave systems in the region are not.
The Seven Rila Lakes
Seven glacial lakes sit in one basin on the Rila massif, each named for its shape: the Tear, the Eye, the Kidney, the Twin. A chairlift from Panichishte drops you at the hut and the circuit above it climbs to about 2,500 metres. Snow lies in the hollows into June, so the summer window is short and the weather turns in minutes.
- 1Rila Monastery and 7 Rila Lakes Self-Guided Shared Trip from Sofia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 280 reviews
- 27 Rila Lakes and Rila Monastery Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 165 reviews
- 3The Seven Rila Lakes & Rila Monastery★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 109 reviews
The Belogradchik Rocks
Red sandstone towers stand out of the hillside near the Serbian border, some of them a hundred metres tall, and a fortress was built straight into the gaps between them. Romans started it, Ottomans finished it, and the walk up the rock is still stairs and railings rather than a path. Magura cave and its prehistoric paintings are half an hour further on.
- 1Full-Day Belogradchik Rocks and Belogradchik Fortress from Sofia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 75 reviews
- 2Belogradchik Full-day Tour from Sofia★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 30 reviews
- 3Balloon Flight over Belogradchik Rocks + extras★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 22 reviews
Devetaki, Magura and the Krushuna falls
The limestone north of the Balkan range is hollow. Devetaki is a single chamber wide enough to have hidden a village, Magura keeps bat-guano paintings that are thousands of years old, and the Krushuna waterfalls step down a travertine staircase you can walk up beside. Most of it runs cold all year, so take a layer even in August.
- 1Tour to Lovech, Devetaki cave & Krushuna waterfalls★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 167 reviews
- 23 Caves tour – Saeva dupka , Eyes of God cave & Devetashka Cave★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
- 3Rila Monastery and St. Ivan Cave History & Nature Trip from Sofia★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 25 reviews
Four Bulgarian bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged at breakfast for the same morning. These four run on small group caps, a chairlift timetable and a season, and they sell out in the order below.
- 01Rila Monastery and Boyana Church Full-Day TourBoyana Church lets a handful of people in at a time for about ten minutes each, so the day trips that include it work to a fixed slot.
- 02Rila Monastery and 7 Rila Lakes Self-Guided Shared Trip from SofiaThe chairlift at Panichishte runs to a timetable and stops for wind. Miss the last one down and the walk out is two hours.
- 03Full-Day Belogradchik Rocks and Belogradchik Fortress from SofiaIt is three hours each way, so it runs as one long shared minibus a few days a week rather than daily.
- 04Ski and Snowboard equipment rental in BanskoInstructors and kit are booked out over the New Year and again in February half term, weeks before anybody checks the snow report.
Bulgaria sells a different holiday in January than it does in July.
The mountain towns run on the snow, roughly mid-December to April. The lake hikes and the coast run from June. Between the two, in spring and late autumn, the cities and the thermal spas are the whole country: Sofia, Plovdiv, the cellars, and a hot mineral pool with snow still on the peaks above it.
By place: the capital, the peaks, the coast
By kind of day: monastery, mountain, cellar or cave
Sofia, Rila, Plovdiv, the Rhodopes: the week almost everybody does first.
New reviews, from the Rila road to the Black Sea.
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Private Day Trip to the Vitosha Mountain and Pancharevo Lake
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Private Sofia Night Tour with Bulgarian Folklore & Dinner
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Full Day Private Eco Tour in Koprivshtitsa from Sofia
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Self-guided tour in Varna Archaeological Museum + ticket
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