Rila Kloster und Boyana Kirche Ganztagestour

Our tour guide, Pavel, is very knowledgeable and personable. I highly recommend this tour if you are ever in Sofia for more than a day. The trip itself is very pleasant and, of course, the Rila Monastery and Boyana church are second to none!

very beautiful places, good organization, and the guide Diana was very kind, knowledgeable, and available. Despite a small personal issue (with her voice), she did not fail to provide explanations and anecdotes about the places visited.

Excellent travel experience with visits to two stunning sites, the Rila Monastery and the Boyana Church, both certainly deserving of their UNESCO World Heritage status. A heartfelt thank you to the Italian-speaking guide Ina.

We arrived very early at the meeting point and am glad we did. We tried to board the bus and were told we weren’t on the passenger list despite showing our valid ticket. We walked to another representative of City Tours who pointed us back towards the bus. We spoke to 4 people wearing city tours T shirts and none of them seemed at all interested one lady very rudely said “there are many tours you need to check your ticket” - pointing to another bus that wasn’t even displaying the City Tours logo. Eventually a guy told us he was our guide but not travelling with us. So we finally got to board the bus we had originally queued at. It turns out that despite booking an English speaking tour 9 of us were placed on a bus with the remainder being Spanish speaking (the lady at the front of the bus seems to have only a Spanish passenger list !). This ratio roughly represented the amount of commentary provided to the mix of customers I.e about 1 minute in English to every 4 mins of Spanish. I would never criticise anyone’s language skills as mine are terrible but if you pay for a service you expect to receive it. Unfortunately the journey was unbearable as the ventilation wasn’t working on a bus full of 50 people and an outside temp of 30+ C. After an hour the driver stopped to fiddle with the air con which did finally provide some respite although looking at the sticky tape, cardboard and even tissue rammed in to overhead ducts it’s little wonder that it again gave up the ghost on the return. The only reason this isn’t a one star review is that the monastery was stunning and our guide in there (Tuni) was very knowledgeable informative and fun.

This was an enjoyable day out from Sofia, all run very efficiently while the tour guide Eva (may not have spelt that correctly) was superb, managing to switch effortlessly between a variety of languages while being uniformly friendly and engaging. The monastery is definitely the main focus of the day rather than Boyana Church - you get a good couple of hours there which is plenty to have a good look round and explore some of the side paths off etc. Boyana Church meanwhile is pretty and has historically significant artwork, but it's definitely Rila that is the main draw. Overall a good day out though and recommended.

Unique experience, adequately assisted by the tutor Ornella. Very skilled, polite, and friendly. Irreplaceable!!!!!

The guides are knowledgeable. They are well-versed in their subjects. Additionally, they are very friendly and professional. The buses are on time and clean. The drivers are good.

The tour was very interesting. The places visited are very beautiful, especially the Rila Monastery. The Boyana Church is also interesting, especially thanks to our guide, Ornella, who explained to us what we would see in this small church. A superb guide, very friendly, who provided us with comprehensive explanations throughout the tour. Highly recommended

Everything was perfect. Eva was an extraordinary guide, with impeccable English and Spanish, incredibly kind, and passionate about her job.

I did the Rola monastery tour The guide Iva is extremely knowledgeable. Her Spanish and English are amazingly fluent. She's super professional and friendly. Loved the experience and recommend to do all the tours with her!