✨The perfect day trip from Sofia✨ About 1.5 hours outside of Sofia, the Rila Monastery is a great day-trip destination. Located inside the grounds is a beautiful church covered in vivid patterns and colorful paintings. The exterior of the church is covered in cautionary tales from the Bible and with very distinct angel and demon portrails. They can be seen guiding humans towards good and evil things; people are faced with the choice of being good or bad in life and this later determine if they will go to hell or heaven in the afterlife. We decided to get a tour guide to learn more about the monastery’s history.We paid for a 30-minute guided tour in English. We learned that the stories painted on the walls of the church has not been restored since it was painted on in 1846. It was very hard to believe as the colors were so vivid! The guide told us that because they actually are unsure what ingredients were used to make the original paint, they were afraid any restoration will only damage the paintings further. The most interesting part of the tour was that we got to see a typical room that a monk would stay in during their time at the monastery. These rooms feature a kitchen area and a living area with a bed. Sometimes these rooms would be occupied by 2 monks if one is studying under the other. #culturalattraction