Bulgaria, from Rila to the sea.
Which Rila Monastery trip also gets you the Seven Lakes. What a Sofia pub crawl costs. When the Bansko lifts start turning. Every tour in Bulgaria, reviewed and priced.
Six days a Bulgaria trip gets built around.
The monastery in the Rila valley, the seven lakes on the ridge above it, Plovdiv’s Roman stage, the concrete saucer on Buzludzha, the caves under the Balkan range and a boat day on the Black Sea.
Rila Monastery: three ways to spend the day.
All Rila Monastery trips →
Two hours south of Sofia, in a fir valley at 1,150m, behind striped arcades painted top to bottom. The difference between the trips is what happens either side of it: Boyana’s 13th-century frescoes, a cave under the cliff, or an afternoon in mineral water.
Rila and Boyana in one day
South through the Rila foothills, two hours in the monastery courtyard, then Boyana on Sofia’s edge where the frescoes predate the Renaissance by eighty years.
The monastery and the seven lakes
A dawn start, the chairlift up to the lake basin, two to three hours on the ridge path, then the monastery on the way down. Snow lies up there into June.
Frescoes first, hot water after
The same monastery morning, then the open-air mineral pools at Sapareva Banya, where the spring comes out of the ground at 103°C and gets cooled before it reaches you.
The tours travellers take most in Bulgaria.
Every Bulgaria review →What the traffic actually goes to: the monastery runs, the Plovdiv days, the communist walking tours and the cheap wine nights in Sofia.
1
Rila Monastery & Boyana Church Day Tour
Sofia to UNESCO Boyana Church and Rila Monastery in one day, with pre-Renaissance frescoes, museums, mountain views, and coach comfort.
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
Full-Day Trip to Bulgaria
from $93
7
The Seven Rila Lakes Full-Day Hiking Tour
from $47
8
Rila Monastery and Boyana Church Full-Day Tour
from $24
Sofia is cheap, flat and stranger than it looks.
A Roman street under the metro station, a mosque, a synagogue and two cathedrals inside four blocks, mineral water running free from the taps by the old baths, and a mountain at the end of the tram line. Most of it is walkable, and most of it costs under $25.
What a day out in Bulgaria actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. Bulgaria is the cheapest country in the EU to book a guided day, and the numbers show it.
Sofia walking tours, pub crawls, museum entry and the wine tastings locals turn up to.
The full-day runs: Rila and the lakes, Plovdiv, the caves and waterfalls, a boat day on the coast.
Private drivers, the long haul to Belogradchik, and the cross-border days to Skopje or Bucharest.
Plovdiv has been lived in for eight thousand years.
The Roman theatre still sells tickets for summer opera. Above it the Old Town’s revival houses lean their upper floors out over the cobbles, and below it Kapana’s craft lanes have turned into the best bar quarter in the country. Two hours from Sofia, and worth a night rather than a day.
Three things that only happen in Bulgaria.
Monasteries and mountain lakes turn up all over the Balkans. A communist party house on a summit ridge, seven glacial lakes on one afternoon’s walk, and red rock towers holding a Roman fort do not.
The Buzludzha Saucer
On a 1,432m ridge in the Balkan range stands the house the Communist Party built for itself in 1981: a concrete flying saucer with a mosaic ring inside and a tower beside it that once carried two red stars. It was abandoned in 1989, stripped, and left to the weather. The doors are welded shut, so tours look at it from outside and fill the rest of the day with Shipka and Kazanlak.
- 1Communist Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,106 reviews
- 2Communist Walking Tour of Sofia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 690 reviews
- 3Museum of Socialist Art and Buzludzha Monument Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 86 reviews
The Seven Rila Lakes
Seven glacial lakes stacked up one cirque at around 2,100–2,500m, each one named for its shape: the Tear, the Eye, the Kidney, the Twin. A chairlift lifts you most of the way and the loop past all seven takes three to four hours on loose stone. The season is short — snow holds in the basin well into June, and cloud can close the whole thing in an hour.
- 17 Rila Lakes and Rila Monastery Extended Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,189 reviews
- 2The Seven Rila Lakes Full-Day Hiking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 923 reviews
- 3The Seven Rila Lakes & Rila Monastery Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 699 reviews
Belogradchik and its Fortress
Three hours north-west of Sofia, sandstone towers stand up to 200m out of the hillside, rust-red and stacked like something left behind. The Romans built a fort into the gaps, the Ottomans finished it, and the walls still use the rock as three of their sides. Most trips pair it with Venetsa cave and make a very long, very quiet day of it.
- 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
Bulgaria runs on seasons. Book these before you land.
Most of the country can be booked the night before from your hotel. These cannot. The lifts, the roses and the boats all run to a calendar that does not care when your flight gets in.
- 01The Rose Valley & Buzludzha Monument Day TourThe damask harvest runs from late May into mid-June. Outside that window the valley is a valley and the distilleries are quiet.
- 02Ski and Snowboard equipment rental in BanskoBoots and boards in Bansko and Borovets are sized and slotted ahead. Turning up at the counter in February is the worst way to get a fit.
- 03Half-Day Black Sea Catamaran CruiseOne boat, a few dozen seats, and in high summer a single afternoon sailing off the beach.
- 047 Rila Lakes and Rila Monastery Extended TripThe chairlift is seasonal and the basin holds snow into June, so the window is short and the Sofia departures fill first.
The Black Sea coast is where Bulgaria spends its summer.
Nessebar’s old town sits on a rock peninsula with forty churches in various states of ruin, tied to the mainland by a causeway. North of it the sand runs for miles at Sunny Beach and Golden Sands; south of it Sozopol keeps the fishing boats. The catamarans go out from the marina in the late afternoon and come back after the sun does.
- 1Half-Day Black Sea Catamaran Cruisefrom $100
- 2Sunset Catamaran Cruise with Dinner & Proseccofrom $70
- 3OFFroad Adventure with Lunch and Drinksfrom $73
Sofia’s best bars are behind unmarked doors.
All Sofia wine tastings →
Wet weather in Bulgaria has an underground answer.
Rain on the coast in June, fog on Vitosha, a whiteout in the Pirin: the country’s best bad-weather days are below ground or in hot water. The caves sit at about 12°C whatever the sky is doing, the mineral baths never close, and the cellars prefer the cold.
One week in Bulgaria, the way it normally runs.
Sofia
Veliko TarnovoBy base — where you are sleeping
Sofia415 tours
Plovdiv66 tours
Varna44 tours
Nessebar & Sunny Beach31 tours
Borovets42 tours
Bansko34 tours
Burgas12 tours- Everything in Bulgaria →
By experience — what are you here for?
Latest Bulgaria tour reviews.
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05.12.2026 Night of the Stars Show Ticket with Exclusive Access
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PRIVATE adventure to Rila Lakes – GROUP price for 6
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