Top Sofia Day Trips

You haven't really seen or understood Plovdiv unless you spent the day with our guide, Desi. On the way she explained Plovdiv's role in Bulgarian history and life. Upon arrival, she ushers you around explaining the significance of what we are seeing and how to appreciate the art, structures, and architecture in each location. She explained clearly how to find our way back to buses and how much time we would need to get there after we completed our bloc of free time. Her guidance about ideas for how to spend our free time and where to find what kinds of foods were very helpful. I attribute her competence, deep knowledge, and personal touch in managing the group to our ability to complete an ample tour fully and on schedule.

7 lakes trek hiking is very scenic albeit fairly tough trail from the top Chairlifts station particularly as track starts very steep climb to the top of the mountain. Chairlifts is very basic with no apparent consideration for safety of travellers, which was little strange thing as it’s nearly 30 mins ride on high mountain with no motorable road access. once you reach the top it’s rewarding and going round the lakes on the way back, we only did five, was also very good. Note the quality of track is not very good in between and will become hazardous during the rain. remember to wear proper trekking shoes! Ria Monastery is majestic and still shows mixture of historical architecture and art. Shops and riverside around also very good. Meeting point in Sofia though a popular place but for navigation point of view perhaps needs more clarity for tourists such as to say Infront of xxxHotel. Our guide Damitri was very helpful and knowledgeable and made the Trip very memorable to us. it’s rewarding day out if you don’t mind climbing difficult tracks up/downhill.

We had a fantastic time on our trip. The communication was great, and we were picked up exactly on time. Our guide was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. He provided great information along the way, and was more than happy to answer all of the questions posed to him. We would not hesitate to take this tour again!

This tour is absolute worth every penny, it’s a whole day tour (from 7 am to 8 pm) but it’s gives you the opportunity to enjoy each location at your own pace. I’m glad I joined this tour and visited such beautiful areas! The hike throughout the lakes can be challenging if you are out of shape, but reaching the peak it’s a reward itself with the amazing views!

The Rila lakes are extremely popular, especially on the weekends. The crowds were unimaginable. The chair lift process is a bit disorganized, the line-up took over an hour to clear. Wish the guides had a way to reserve lift tickets in advance. Nevertheless, the views up above by the lakes were totally worth the wait. We took a guide option and perhaps we should have opted out to a self-guided option as it the pace was a bit high. However, the guide was instrumental in reaching the sixth lake (and potentially the seventh) on time and getting back to the bus. The hike took about 3 hours and the length was about 8 km with the elevation gain of 400m. First, you climb a steep incline to the right of the chalet, then it is a walk on a fairly flat surface until you reach the last big incline to the sixth and seventh lakes. Overall, depending on your ambitions, you may want to spend longer up by the lakes depending on your overall fitness (unless you need to be on-time for the return bus!). There are some food and drinks on both sides of the chair lift. The chalet up top has a small restaurant with sitting outside. We got lucky with no rain as the chairs are open but sure do check the forecast so you come on a clear day. The monastery on the way back was a perfect icing on a cake and a relaxing stop after the mountain hike. Overall, this is probably the best tour we took from Sofia. Very long day but totally worth it.

I visited the monastery and cave. In the tour though, if you didn’t book the church you still have to go and wait for the group, (btw they were charging €6 for 6 minutes to look inside the church)! The Monastery was absolutely beautiful, out of this world. The cave was pretty cool, went inside and climbed through the hole. Overall was a good trip but group was too big and a lot of waiting around. Tour guide Lubo was excellent though, very funny and gave lots of information on each place we went to. For this trip, it only cost me about £17 on Viator. It was so worth £17, bargain tour!

This was a great day trip and definitely worth doing if you want to get out of Sofia and see something completely different. Our day started with a bit of unexpected circumstances when our driver had a medical emergency. Thankfully, the company handled the situation incredibly well. They made sure their driver received the help he needed and quickly arranged another driver so our trip could continue with very little delay. We really appreciated how professional and caring they were. Once we arrived, everything was exactly as described. Our guide was friendly, knowledgeable, and did a great job explaining the history and interesting facts along the way. He even gave us recommendations for places to eat, which was a nice bonus. It's a long day, but the scenery and experience make it absolutely worth it. We'd definitely recommend this tour to anyone wanting to get a taste of Serbia while in Sofia!

Tour guide Ani was very friendly right from the beginning. Despite only being booked and required to speak in Spanish Ani kindly translated everything into English for those of us who should have had audio guides. I had downloaded the audio guide but hard to follow given that the numbers etc. didn't tie up with the order that we saw things in Plovdiv. Also, the audio guide is an American voice that goes into a lot of detail sometimes for nearly 10 minutes at a time, which I found quite annoying after awhile and hard to stay interested in. If you can I definitely recommend booking a tour with a tour guide that speaks your required language and don't book the audio guide tours. Plovdiv was lovely and nice weather. We also went to the Thracian tomb near Starosel and Starosel art village to look at the amazing graffiti art work. Thank you Ani and our driver for a lovely day trip in a comfortable minibus.