All Sofia Tours & Excursions in 2026 - page 17

Our guide, Ilian, was amazing! He knew so much about EVERYTHING - not only the history of Boyana Church and Rila Monastery, but about the history of Bulgaria in general. The drive flew by because we were talking the whole time. The sites were beautiful and fascinating. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Our tour guide was very friendly and knowledgeable. She spoke perfect English and showed us everything a foreign tourist would want to experience when they are in Sofia and Bulgaria in general for the first time. We were very satisfied and would recommend this tour 100% to anyone who wants to learn some of the Bulgarian history and culture when they are in the country for the first time.

Please make sure to check the weather. We started the day with a visit to the Rila Monastery. The monastery is beautiful. Bring cash so you can try some of their delicious snacks. The 7 Rila Lakes hiking portion was canceled due to significant snow and mud on the ground. The tour leader was kind enough to replace this with an excursion to see a waterfall followed by free time in a thermal spa. Overall it was a very good experience.

Our tour guide/driver was fantastic and took great care of us. It was raining heavily but he ensured we got the full experience and asked how much we wanted to push through all the parts of the tour given the weather - meaning he followed the desires of the group. He was on time and wrote the day before to reconfirm which I thoroughly appreciated. He was personable and a safe driver, and had great recommendations for meal and shopping. The town itself is nice and walkable (quite beautiful when you see the placement of the fortress), and the history is interesting.

Our tour guide, Hristo was very knowledgeable about the history of this area of the world. He filled in gaps I had been unclear about in the religious history of Bulgaria. He spoke clearly and loudly in his excellent English, making it easy to understand all he said. He was personable, helpful and excellent at pointing out local architecture and how it related to the history and religion of Plovdiv. I highly recommend a tour with Hristo. In fact, we booked another tour with him for next week. Our bus driver was a safe driver and I'm always appreciative of that. I highly recommend.

So much to see in Plovdiv it was good to have an experienced person help pull it all together. Wish we had a little more time to explore certain parts and while the recommendation for lunch was perfect from a culinary perspective it did not leave any time to go back to previous spots. Only suggestion is that it was hard to hear in the back seat of the transport so maybe a microphone or something else to project to all

This was a long day, but it was worth the time and money. Our driver/host Apostolos inew a lot about the country and kept us on track while ensuring we had opportunity to stop for food and bathroom. We very much enjoyed the 2hr walking free tour (tip based) that Apostolos arranged for us( we learned a lot about Plovdiv from our very knowledgeable local tour guide. We had enough time at the Rila Monastery to walked around and admire the architecture and religious wealth. We wished that we had received the audio tour hyperlink from the company that runs the tour one day in advance, as we had planned our time there more efficiently. However, we strongly recommend the tour.

We had our tour of Rila Monastery and Boyana Church in February 2025 at 9 am. The day before we got all the information of this so it was easy in the morning. When we first got to the meeting point, there were 3 tour buses. You just say what company you are with and then they point you to the right bus. Our tour guide was Lubdomir. The first stop was Boyana church, spent about 40 minutes here, in total we had 22 ish people on the tour so we had to go inside the church in 2 groups. Also it was extra payment for Boyana Church (approximately 5 EUR per person) but this was communicated the day before. After that we left for Rila Monastery. We got there at 12 pm. You had the choice to leave at 1:30 pm to go to a local restaurant where you can pay via card or leave at 2:45 pm from the monastery, the choice was yours which was nice. There was a bakery and some souvenirs outside of the monastery where the local breakfast pastry bread was 1 LEV. After we got driven back to Sofia and finished the tour around 4:45 pm. Solid tour, felt like we had an ample amount of time, nice coach and solid guide.