Sofia is two hours from a monastery in the pines. Most people never leave the city.
Which Rila day trip stops at the Seven Lakes and which only photographs them. What a Plovdiv Roman theatre morning costs. When the ski desks in Bansko run out of boots. Reviews of every tour you can book in Bulgaria.
A monastery, seven glacial lakes, a Roman stage and a night in the cellar bars.
The four days a first Bulgarian week is built around. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The first day outRila Monastery & Boyana Church Day TourRila Monastery and the Boyana frescoes in one run from Sofia. Two UNESCO sites, back in the city by dinner.
02The mountain day7 Rila Lakes and Rila Monastery Extended TripThe chairlift above Panichishte, then the ridge path over all seven lakes. Long, high, and the photograph everyone else comes back with.
03The Plovdiv morningGuided Day Tour of Plovdiv’s Must-See SightsA Roman theatre still used for concerts, and the painted merchant houses stacked above it on the hill.
04The eveningWine & Cheese Tasting ExperienceMelnik and Mavrud poured beside sheep cheese from the Rhodopes. Central Sofia, an easy walk back to the hotel.
Rila in half a day, the Seven Lakes in a long one. Pick the altitude.
The Rila massif holds the monastery, the glacial lakes above Panichishte and the Boyana frescoes on the Sofia side. Three kinds of day, what it costs to join each one, and how much walking is involved.
Sofia for the day trips, Plovdiv for the old town, the coast for August.
Nearly everything inland leaves from Sofia. Plovdiv holds the Roman city and the painted houses, Bansko and Borovets take the winter, and the Black Sea towns run their own summer. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Sofia hides a Roman street under the metro station.
Concrete slabs of the People’s Palace, gold onion domes at Alexander Nevsky, an excavated Serdica lane running beneath the shopping crossing, and hidden bars behind unmarked doors. The city is walked in an afternoon and takes a week to read.
Plovdiv has been lived in for eight thousand years and still fills the Roman theatre.
Everything in Plovdiv →
Two hours down the motorway from Sofia: a hillside of painted National Revival houses, a stadium buried under the pedestrian street, and a second-century theatre that still sells tickets. Most people do it as a day trip and wish they had stayed the night.
- 1Private city walking tour of Plovdivfrom $184
- 2Bachkovo Monastery, Asen Fortress, & Bridges Tourfrom $131
- 3Guided Walking Tourfrom $14
Old town, theatre and the buried stadium
The full day out of Sofia: the Roman theatre, the cobbled Revival quarter and the stadium under Knyaz Alexander I street, with the drive back before dark.
Asen’s Fortress above the gorge
A thirteenth-century church left standing on a rock spur south of the city, with the Rhodope gorge opening below it. Usually bolted onto a Bachkovo day.
Bachkovo, and the walnut trees
Bulgaria’s second monastery sits in a wooded valley half an hour from Plovdiv, with a soup kitchen at the gate and none of Rila’s coach traffic.
The Bulgarian days out that travellers book before anything else.
Every Bulgarian tour we have reviewed →Ordered by how many people take them, with what earns each of them the slot.
1
Rila Monastery & Boyana Church Day Tour
Travel from Sofia to Boyana Church and Rila Monastery in an international group, with an English, Spanish, or Italian guide. See Boyana’s remarkable frescoes, explore Bulgaria’s grandest monastery, visit museums, taste mekitsi, and enjoy Rila Mountain scenery. Guides such as Lubo, Kamen, Martin, and Hristo are often praised for clear, lively commentary.
From · $23
Read our review →
2
Must-See Rila Monastery & Boyana Church Day Tour
from $23
3
Guided Day Tour of Plovdiv’s Must-See Sights
from $23
4
7 Rila Lakes and Rila Monastery Extended Trip
from $64
5
Communist Walking Tour
from $21
6
The Seven Rila Lakes Full-Day Hiking Tour
from $47
7
Rila Monastery and Boyana Church Full-Day Tour
from $24
8
Rila Monastery & Boyana Church Day Tour
from $24
The coast keeps its old town on a rock and its parties three miles north.
Nessebar is a walled peninsula of wooden houses and half-ruined Byzantine churches, joined to the mainland by a causeway. Sunny Beach and Golden Sands sell the loud version. The catamarans leave from between the two.
Every Black Sea day out →
Bansko and Borovets sell Alpine snow at Balkan prices.
Two resorts, both under two hours from Sofia: Bansko on the Pirin side with a stone-walled old town and mehanas at the bottom of the gondola, Borovets in the Rila pines with the shorter transfer. Rented gear is booked separately and it goes early.
- 1Ski and Snowboard equipment rental in Banskofrom $18
- 2Villa Victoria Thermal Pool Escapefrom $22
- 3Horse Riding Experiencefrom $56
What a day out in Bulgaria actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Bulgaria is the cheapest corner of Europe for guided days, and the list below shows how far that goes.
Sofia walking tours, wine and cheese evenings, museum entries and the shared minibus to Rila.
Full days: the Seven Lakes with the chairlift, Plovdiv with Bachkovo, Belogradchik and the caves.
Private drivers, two-day runs to the Rhodopes and the jeep days on the mountain tracks.
Three things you can only see in Bulgaria.
Monasteries and mountain lakes turn up all over the Balkans. Sandstone towers the colour of rust, a concrete saucer abandoned on a summit, and a valley that supplies most of the world’s rose oil do not.
The Belogradchik Rocks
Red sandstone towers stand up to a hundred metres above the Balkan foothills near the Serbian border, and a fortress was built straight into them, using the rock itself for two of its walls. Most trips pair it with the Venetsa cave an hour away, because the drive from Sofia is three hours each way and nobody wants to do that twice.
- 1Belogradchik Rocks & Venetsa Cave Full-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 354 reviews
- 2Full-Day Belogradchik Rocks and Belogradchik Fortress from Sofia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 75 reviews
- 3Belogradchik Fortress & Venetsa Cave 12 hrs Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 73 reviews
The Buzludzha Monument
The Bulgarian Communist Party built its congress hall as a flying saucer on a 1,432-metre summit, finished it in 1981 and abandoned it a decade later. The mosaics inside are peeling off the walls and the doors are welded shut, so this is a photograph from the outside, in wind that takes the door off a car.
- 1Museum of Socialist Art and Buzludzha Monument Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 86 reviews
- 2The Rose Valley & Buzludzha Monument Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 77 reviews
- 3Buzludzha Monument and The Rose Valley Day Tour From Sofia 13 hrs★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 18 reviews
The Rose Valley
The strip between the Balkan range and the Sredna Gora grows the damask roses that supply most of the world’s rose oil. Pickers start before dawn, because the oil drops as the sun comes up, and the whole harvest runs a few weeks from late May. Turn up in August and you are looking at bushes.
- 1The Rose Valley & Buzludzha Monument Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 77 reviews
- 2The Rose Valley & Koprivshtitsa 12 hrs Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 39 reviews
- 3Buzludzha Monument and The Rose Valley Day Tour From Sofia 13 hrs★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 18 reviews
Four Bulgarian bookings that run on a calendar, not your plans.
Most of this country can be arranged from a hotel desk the night before. These four answer to snowfall, a harvest, a chairlift timetable and a mountain road, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 017 Rila Lakes and Rila Monastery Extended TripThe chairlift above Panichishte runs in the summer season and stops for maintenance breaks. Outside it, the seven lakes are a snow trek, not a walk.
- 02Rila Monastery & Boyana Church Day TourThe painted church admits a few people at a time for about ten minutes each. The slots are timed, finite, and gone on a summer morning.
- 03Ski and Snowboard equipment rental in BanskoBoots and skis are rented per size, not per person. On a Bansko weekend in February the desks run out of the common sizes by Friday afternoon.
- 04The Rose Valley & Buzludzha Monument Day TourThe damask harvest lasts a few weeks from late May and the pickers work before dawn. Book for June or look at bushes.
Rain on the Rila ridge ends a hike. It does not end the day.
Bulgarian mountain weather changes in an hour, and the high paths are the first thing to go. The answer is underground or indoors: caves that hold nine degrees all year, thermal water piped out of the ground since the Romans, a cellar of Mavrud, and the icon galleries.
Mavrud, sheep cheese and a mehana that keeps pouring.
The country grows grapes the rest of Europe has never planted: Mavrud around Plovdiv, Melnik in the far south-west, Rubin from the state vineyards. Book the cellar evening, the market walk, and the dinner where the band plays too loud.
- 1Wine & Cheese Tasting Experiencefrom $21
- 2Wine Tasting in Heart of Sofiafrom $36
- 3Guided Tasting of Local Wines and Cheesesfrom $21
By place — capital, mountains and coast
By kind of day — monastery, mountain, cellar or coast
Sofia, Rila, Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo, then down to the sea.
The newest Bulgarian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Veliko Turnovo-Bulgarian old capital and Arbanasi
Read our review →
Varna Echoes: Flavors, Footsteps, Tales & Wine tasting
Read our review →
Full-Day Private Sightseeing Tour to the North of Varna
Read our review →
Private Cape Kaliakra & the Balchik Botanical Gardens from Varna
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