I had a tight schedule since I was trying to make a flight to Cyprus (it was $8 for a specific day, and I was not about to give that up), but I had one bucket list item I really wanted to see in Bulgaria: the Rila Monastery.
How to Get There
There are tour buses that can take you for the day, but I found the easiest method was renting a car for $20 for the day. It was an easy two hour drive, and absolutely beautiful with the changing autumn trees. Plus you can stop at the “Unofficial Junk Museum,” a collection of items from the Soviet Bulgarian era, which is extremely unique!
The Rila Monastery
You have to pay about $5 for parking in front of the monastery, but you’re free to wander as you like! It’s fascinating since it’s still in working order. Of course I use my tripod to get my photos but the security guard kept shoo-ing me away. I found a nice corner to be able to take my photos quickly and get out of there since the guard was getting extremely upset. Sometimes I find it annoying that having a tripod to take photos of yourself upsets people; I’m extremely picky about how I compose my shots so I can’t just give my camera to a person to take a photo! Anyways, photography is something to be aware of if you’re a solo traveler like myself trying to get your shot.
The People
I don’t think I met a single person who spoke English, which is totally okay, but I didn’t find Bulgarians to be that friendly. This translated over to an incident I had; I had a flight at 4 AM, which meant I needed to be at the airport around 1 AM, so I decided I was just going to sleep in the car in a McDonald’s parking lot until my flight. Well, the car battery died, and it was 11 PM. I knocked on the door of the McDonald’s and they wanted nothing to do with me. Eventually, a girl took pity on me (mostly because I wouldn’t leave the drive through window) and called a mechanic to jump the car. Moral of the story, don’t sleep in your rental car in Bulgaria in autumn when it’s starting to get frigidly cold.
