Transfer from Sofia to  Rila Monastery, Sandanski, Melnik, Rozhen Monastery - back to Sofia, free hotel-airport  pick up included.        

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Holiday apartments in Sofia for short-long term

Tour 3: From Sofia to Rila Monastery, Sandanski, Melnik, Rozhen Monastery - Sofia. Full day tour

These prices are in euro,  per car, or bus and NOT per person. (all our prices include all taxes)

 For group 1-4 passengers: Cars with air condition, air bags, ski rack up to 4 ski and snowboard.

Daewoo Leganza (4+1)

Citroen Berlingo (4+1)

Opel Astra combi (4+1)

Mercedes E class

Mercedes C class

 

 

 

 

Mercedes E class

Audi A4, 1.9 TDI (4+1)

Peugeot Partner 2HDI (4+1

 

 

 

 

For group 5 -18 passengers - Minibus  with air condition, video & TV, mini bar, microphone. Fully Insured, 2006, 2007 year. 

Peugeot6+1

MercedesVito7+1

VW Transporter 8+1

MercedesSprinter11+1

MercedesSprinter16+1

Mercedes Sprinter 18+1

 

 

 

  

For group 18-59 passengers - Minibus  with air condition, video & TV, mini bar, microphone. Fully Insured, 2006, 2007 year. 

MercedesVario20+1

Navigo (28+1)

Man Opalin (36+1+1)

 

 

 

 

 

Man (47+1) VIP

Man0(50+1)

Setra 417 GT-HD 59+1+1

 

 

We can leave 7-9 am. from your hotel and drive to Rila Monastery situated in the Rila Mountains at a height of 1150 meters. Behind the 20-metre high walls lie impressive monastery buildings, a church and a chapel with valuable murals. The Rila Monastery is the biggest and most important symbol of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Near the Monastery there are very good restaurant you can take lunch (fresh trout fish, pork, melnik wine - dry red wine from the region). After  we continue to Sandanski in the Pirin Mountains. From Sandanski we drive to the old town of Melnik and there we visit tradesman Kordopulov's house of 1754. After we drive further south to the picturesque Rozhen Monastery dating from the 13th c. - the only Bulgarian monastery which remained unharmed during the Turkish domination. At 5- 7 pm we are in Sofia.

Here you can see pictures from the tour:

Rila Monastery:

30km. before Rila Monastery             Rila Monastery              Restaurant ELESHNITSA            Trout fish

The monastery was founded by Ivan Rilski (John of Rila) in the 10th century as a colony for hermits. It has been destroyed by fire, and abandoned by the monks. Its present place, 119 km south of Sofia, is the one in which it stood during the 14th century, 
when the protosebast Dragovol Hrelyo settled in the monastery as an independent ruler. In  1335 he built the five storey defence tower, topped by the Transfiguration Chapel,  fragments of whose murals can still be seen today. By the end of 14th century, the Rila Monastery had turned into a powerful feudal entity with many villages, lands and properties. Tsar Shishman alone, the last Bulgarian ruler, donated it over twenty villages in different districts. The monastery's unquestionable authority influenced the Turkish sultanates who confirmed the rights granted by the Bulgarian kings by special firmans. Irrespective of this, the Monastery was devastated around the mid-15th century. It started rising again after the relics of Ivan Rilski were brought from Veliko Turnovo here in 1469 (passing through the whole of Bulgaria as a nation-wide patriotic procession). The fate of the Monastery became the concern of the entire Bulgarian nation. A new centre was needed for the cultural life, which had declined or was transferred abroad. Many of the time's most outstanding men of letters gradually started gathering in the monasteries. The first links with Russian monasteries were established. A charter of Tzar Ivan the Terrible, kept today at the Monastery Museum, allowed the monks unlimited access to the Moscow Principality. World Cultural Heritage (UNESCO object) National tourist object. The biggest Bulgarian revival, spiritual and cultural centre 16,000 volume library including 134 manuscripts from 15th to 19th century. Exclusive mural paintings, woodcarving and icons, gold weave materials and embroidery.  A multitude of gold and silver church plates, collections of coins, weapons and jewellery.  

Spa Resort - Sandanski

 Hotel "Sandanski"

The town of Sandanski is located at an altitude of 224 m in the foothills of the Pirin Mountains, along Sandanska Bistritsa river. The resort climate is indeed UNIQUE. Throughout the year, local temperatures are higher then inland temperatures - the annual average being 14.7 °C. Winters are mild and short, autumns long and warm. Relative humidity is low (66%), there are over 2436 hours of sunshine a year and fogs are rare. The mineral waters are clear,  colourless, odorless and pleasant tasting, silicic, mildly fluorine, hyperthermal (42-81°C), slightly mineralized, hydrocarbonic-sulphatesodium.Resort conditions are particularly conducive to the treatment of bronchial asthma in its three forms atopic, infectious allergic and combined. Already during the first week a marked clinical improvement is observed, with fewer attacks both with regard to frequency, strength and duration, and in more than 55% of the cases they disappear completely.The comprehensive balneo-climatic treatment in the resort also exerts a beneficial effect on a number of other conditions:a non-specific pulmonary diseases: chronic bronchitis, post-pneumonia or post-bronchopneumonia states, chronchiectasis, early pulmonary emphysema;conditions of the upper respiratory tract: chronic rhinitis, sinusitis;disturbances of the locomotory system of a degenerative or inflammatory origin: osteoarthrosis rheumatoid arthritis, tenosynovitis;neurological complaints: plexitis, radiculitis, slipped disc;allergic skin diseases: urticaria, psoriasis;
some kidney and urological diseases and conditions of the digestive system: gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers in remission, colitis, glomerulonephritis, cystopyelitis.

 Melnik: Wine region 

Melnik's layout is simple, with a single main street running alongside a (usually dry) riverbed spanned by rickety footbridges, then diverging into two gullies. Due to the terrain, houses are small at ground level but expand outwards further up, with the living quarters on the upper floors jutting out above the lower barred and shuttered levels that function as cellars or barns. Tiny backstreets invite aimless wandering, while the hillsides abound in tortoises and lizards.On the left bank of the river, shaded by 500-year-old plane trees, a cobbled square is overlooked by the derelict former Konak (residence) of the Turkish governor, a tall white edifice with Moorish scalloped arches. At the outset of the Balkan War, police chief Karim Bey had 27 eminent citizens arrested and murdered to instil fear into the population. Ironically, the erstwhile jail beside the Konak is now a cosy hotel.The vineyards are planted with small, dark grapes of the variety known as Melnik Broad Vine, introduced from Syria in the fourteenth century. After harvesting, the grapes are allowed to cool in basements before being pressed and left to ferment in the chilly cellars that riddle the hills around Melnik.Wine is central to two of Melnik's festivals . On Trifon Zarezan (February 14) the vineyards are ritually pruned and sprinkled with wine to ensure a bumper crop, and families sample the young wine from last year's harvest. The harvest can fall any time from late September to mid-October, but is always celebrated on October 18. Another festival with horo dancing occurs on the last Sunday in August. 

Rozhen Monastery:

ROZHEN MONASTERY "Rozhdestvo Bogorodichno" is to be found 6 km east of Melnik. It is built in 1220 in the place of ancient pagan consecrated ground by despot Aleksiy Slav. In 14 – 17 c. it is a spiritual cultural and literary centre; a calligraphic school works here. During the years of Ottoman rule the monastery is turned into a cloister of Iver Svetogorski monastery (till 1912). Present day buildings date back to 18 and the beginning of 19 c. The outline of the yard is irregular, enclosed by the monastery wings and to the east (at the main entrance) – by a high wall. The southern wing is the oldest. The ground floor houses wine cellars and warehouses, and the main floor – cells, cook-house, the living quarters of Father Superior and refectory. The northern wing is built on donations by the craft-guild of Melnik and in times of danger the population found refuge here. Three-nave monastery church "Rozhdestvo Bogorodichno" is renovated and extensively painted in 1732, and later an older painting layer was uncovered dating back to 1597. The oldest paintings can be found in the monastery bone-vault built and painted in 1662. The monastery is remarkable for its wood-carved iconostases. The small iconostasis in the dema is a masterpiece of Bulgarian fretwork art. Stained glass paintings on the windows dating back to 1715 are a unique find for Bulgarian from that period. Rozhen monastery is one of the most worthy monuments of Revival religious construction in Southwestern Bulgaria. Close by one can see the grave of Yane Sandanski who often found refuge In the monastery, and also "Sveti Sveti Cyril i Methodius" cathedral.

 
For more detailed information please do not hesitate to contact us by telephone
or e-mail.

Wishes you a nice trip in Bulgaria, see you in Sofia. 

International Car, Bus transfer: 

These prices are in Euro, per car or bus and NOT per person. (all our prices include all taxes)

Car, minivan, bus, coach air condition, video & TV, mini bar, microphone up to 59 persons with luggage.

 Transfers to the border: ( Kulata, Kalotina, Kapitan Andreevo, Ruse.)

Domestic Car transfer to/from Sofia: Free Airport, Hotel pick up.

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Contact Krasimir Brankov on +359888510675.  TEXT US on +359 888 510675     ICQ  262-872-902 

 Travel  and useful links - Bulgarian links:

Black sea - Nessebar - Hotel "Estrea"  

Book Hotel in Sofia:

Hotel Galant    

Single room: € 40, Double room: € 50

Indoor swimming pool, Fitness, Sauna, Massage, Lobby Bar, Sunny terrace, Restaurant. Room-service, International phone, Internet.  L O C A T I O N - 15 km from the center of Sofia on the road to Samokov, Borovetz and the Rila Monastery. Only 1 km from the Ring Road. Situated in a nice park at the foot of Vitosha Mountain next to The Pancharevo Lake. 

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