BULGARIA IS UNDERRATED! Rila Monastery & 7 Rila Lakes 🇧🇬

[Music] thanks for the coffee you're welcome we got going so late today that the coffee shops are already open which i'm not so mad about but we were supposed to be out of town two hours ago or so we're in sofia bulgaria the country's capital we'll make a video about sophia later on but we stayed here just a couple of nights in route to some adventures we've picked up a rental car as you can see so we are free and wild where are we going freedom yeah we're heading about two hours south from sofia to rila for one of bulgaria's most famous hikes it's the seven rila lakes hike and it is supposed to be incredible with the views and as the name suggests seven beautiful lakes up in this alpine region with mountain views all around let's get driving [Music] and i'm surprised y'all it is beautiful just like 10 minutes outside of sofia there are a lot of beautiful rolling hills and mountains and cliffs and a lot of greenery and it is beautiful like my ears are already starting to pop and we're like 10 minutes outside the city bulgaria is beautiful y'all [Music] [Music] all right we just arrived to the relay area and parking for basically one day is five lay which is only like two dollars and fifty cents usd and it's cash only so make sure you have cash when you come here i believe the chair lifts which we're going to take to the start of the trailhead up there um take credit card as well so you should be okay for that we'll let you know in just a second is it leo we've parked we're walking up to the little chairlift now y'all and it is busy there are cars everywhere we drove to the end to see if there are any spots but there weren't so i had to back up for like 200 meters in reverse to find a parking spot so definitely get here early if you want to make sure you have parking close to the chairlift but even at this time around 11 a.m it's not too bad we're driving to the top now i do yeah the internet's not working tickets secured it was 25 love per person which is about 25 usd total for two i will say bring cash we tried to pay with credit card and she said the internet wasn't working which fair enough we are kind of out here so just go ahead and bring cash and you'll be good to go i see the chairs going let's catch one [Music] with one hand trying to film that was quick they were like stop okay go okay are you ready put your backpack on first we made it i love your chairlift it feels like we're on a swing so we're going to just swing yeah we got a little really got some like swinging momentum [Music] so we thought that the chairlift closed at 4 30 on the return based on like the google maps listing and other online listings but it's actually 6 30 p.m so we're in luck because the whole hike i believe is gonna take us probably a good five to six hours with filming yeah it's usually three to four yeah we're slow because we film but i think maybe that's like summer hours you know the extended hours that's true definitely check before you come but we are good to go [Music] it's cheery the sun is behind a huge cloud and we keep going up and up in elevation and it is cold my jacket's at the bottom of my backpack so we have to wait till we get off luckily we're almost done but it is breezy up here [Music] that's very exciting yeah the assist is a lot come on hi babies oh to be a mountain puppy i got a tail wag out of one of them we are the troll head for the rila seven lakes hike y'all and it is stunning here you almost feel like you're in switzerland or southern germany or maybe like the dole much or something it just has this beautiful alpine mountainous like terrain and it's large patches of ice it is incredible it is gorgeous i didn't expect it to look like this for some reason i was expecting forest but we are up in the mountains y'all i have started my all trails map we're ready to go it is supposed to be 6.2 miles with almost 1800 feet of elevation gain it's gonna be a hike also there were toilets at the beginning of the hike at the little hotel restaurant they were one love per person let's hike you're gonna want to be up on your cardiovascular fitness because i mean we're up here but it's not like a huge elevation difference but i feel it already right at the beginning it is a serious gut check just steep incline but i will say they have a ton of great infrastructure everything is well marked well paved they've done a really good job of setting this up for everyone yeah for sure they have but it goes up we've leveled off a tiny bit which feels really nice and i spy a lake ooh the first lake one of seven on the uh the wildflowers here are stunning they're so vibrant we got like yellows purples blues reds hot pinks incredible and butterflies flying by oh that pretty smells good [Music] all right so we just saw legs number two and three and it's really cool they kind of feed each other with like small waterfalls running off from the top one to the lower one and they keep just kind of cascading down as you walk you can constantly hear waterfalls in the distance it is gorgeous beautiful light count that's number four that's rude that's rude if you see any trash on the trails you can pick it up take it with you and right at the upper chairlift station there's a trash collection point where you can drop it off [Music] so [Music] [Music] so our late count is based on view not what's closest to us that could be lake number one or it could be lake number four or five we don't really know either way this hike is just what we needed look at the baby retrieving a frisbee [Music] lunch with a view we found a nice little rock next to a gorgeous lake with a doggie in the background i love it and let's do a little unboxing oh the dog keeps running near me let's do an unboxing of us for lunch we have pb j classic we've got some dried figs we've got lots of granola bars a couple of apples some almonds a little of this little that whatever sounds good to us and some water let's eat [Music] okay we've had a nice long lunch break let the food kind of settle and now begins definitely the hardest part we are going up up i think we still have a thousand feet of elevation to do this part of it once you get to the the water it's kind of an out and back and then you'll come back to this spot and go back to make the actual loop if that makes sense but oh i think we even have to kind of climb some ice-ish i'm a little nervous let's go give it a try [Music] it's always weird seeing so much snow and ice around you and seeing the ice in the lake but it's hot and you feel warm up here makes it that much more enjoyable to see that scenery but also be fairly comfortable for a pretty strenuous hike [Music] so watch yourself we're here in early summer and all of the ice and snow hasn't quite melted just yet and unfortunately we don't have our hiking boots in any of our hiking gear with us i really miss my boots you're you're gonna prefer waterproof shoes we're about to walk through slush in knit sneakers slippery slush it's pretty thick and we have like no grip on our shoes but we just wanted to come here anyway so before you all attack us in the comments and you know start calling us out we know we weren't planning to do any hikes like this this segment in europe so could you miss this you could go all right that wasn't that bad luckily a lot of people have gone before us and left a bunch of big footprints that we can kind of step in and use those little steps and ledges to get up so that wasn't too bad but have a feeling going now it's going to be a little bit more tricky did you expect all this today i didn't expect all this today to be honest i had i didn't realize it was all alpine and this is like the most excellent surprise but coming down on that snow is going to be kind of funny we've seen people slide down it we've seen people like tumble down it i think that short one later might be the way to go but that's a problem for later [Music] we're running low on water and we're only halfway through our hike but we brought our trusty grail water purifying water bottle y'all we've been traveling with these things since 2019 when we first started it all when you need some water you just fill this puppy up press it through the filter and voila fresh snow melt water to drink and in this case it is ice cold tastes perfect [Music] [Music] well i admire their beauty but yeah i hate them we've made it up to the six to lake yard you can tell it gets a lot colder up here because this one looks like it's like 70 percent iced over 70 feels high i'm gonna give it thirty percent ice what's only on the top you wanna debate you'll fight you come one one two three four hiding somewhere no pressure reigning champ y'all i don't know what it is but ashley literally always beats me at thumb wrestling and i actually try he's walking off like he's a champion or something i am it's a little bit longer to go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the views up here are incredible you can literally see all seven of the lakes and you're on top of here it feels so amazing so free with that crisp air coming and hitting you it's incredible just having a contemplative moment y'all the views are stunning our legs are tired we're only halfway through our adventure out here near rila so we're just gonna go ahead and do the descent you won't miss much and we will see you all bright and early in the morning for a whole new set of adventures rainy morning out in the countryside of bulgaria we weren't even going to sort of include our overnight stay because we didn't think it would be much at all besides a place to lay our heads but it turned into such a beautiful travel moment and so we wanted to bring you along it's breakfast time our gracious gracious host peter oh let me back up we are at the guest house our gotcho and peter is the owner of this guest house it is magnificent out it feels like in the middle of nowhere but it's very much somewhere in bulgaria near um i think the town of stobe s-t-o-b and he's just been the most excellent host we were up so late talking and he was sharing his homemade um liquor what reiki rocky reikia anyway it's made from grapes and we were just chatting about travel and a little bit of this little bit of that it was just amazing we highly highly recommend link below you can book it through booking.com that's how we found it we had no idea it was going to be such a like homestay kind of a feeling anyway i'm starving all right so the rain is really coming down now but we're covered under a little awning so it's a beautiful picnic for breakfast so we've got some sort of bulgarian pancake filled with chocolate jam and honey one of each so let's dig in the pizza sweet yes yeah i got the fried bread which is some kind of basically bread with egg wash and milk mixture and fried and toasted i thought it was like a french toast but it's not it's very thick a little chewy it just tastes like a fried bread a little bit like a french toast but not near as soft very simple [Music] all right y'all our time here has come to an end we stayed in the uh the village of staub which there's only like 700 people that live in this village it is super quiet a lot of like vineyards around perfect place to wake up have a breakfast and then head out to our next stop which is the larila monastery it's one of the most popular attractions in this area and it's only like a 30 minute drive from here yo this is ridiculous we're trying to get to the atm because everything is cash we have to pay for the guest house and cash and the monastery and parking the road we're supposed to go on is under construction and it's muddy because it poured down last night and i can't really turn around but i'm trying to get out of here and there's a car blocking the path back there [Music] you're okay i think oh stop what go forward go forward keep going keep going [Music] um slowly okay okay [Music] okay basically if you go any further that way you're gonna hit because it your back wheel starts to go down and so you're going to hit the undercarriage so you can go back a little bit more not much but not much this is going to be a kind of a situation it's very stressful okay okay a little more [Music] a hair more you're good keep on stop are you in sweetheart wherever you're going to the monastery [Music] jordan popped into a store that supposedly has an atm and i think there's also maybe an atm across the street we went more into the actual town of rila but now seems like the perfect time to mention y'all really missed it on the back half of that hike yesterday we i this morning i woke up feeling guilty that we didn't film it but it was just impossible we were on a time crunch because the whole day just took so much longer than we thought with us stopping filming we were rushing to make it back to the chairlift which closed at 6 30. we got off trail for a good long while so then we realized we're off trail we double back and then at the point where we double back and we're supposed to be back on trail it's just not well marked we were trying to take the red trail and there's several different ones that are crisscrossing jordan's running ahead trying to see where to go and doubling back and i'm honestly just trying not to cry because at this point it's the end of a very long day and we are freaking exhausted and honestly a little sunburned we finally find the red trail again and we're seeing markings and then next thing you know we come to a major river crossing like take your shoes off get into the water river crossing ice i'm so sorry we didn't film it it would have been very exciting content but it was so stressful in the moment we're climbing up boulders we're basically like running through this meadow section and the entire thing is just full of mud there were a couple of times where my thighs just like wouldn't move fast enough anymore and i'm like trying to pep talk myself of like you have to do it you have to do it because if we had missed the chair lift it was going to be another hour or two to get back down without the lift when my butt finally hit the seat of the chairlift at like 6 15. i could have cried with relief we made it jordan was such a champ uh speaking of a champ he's jogging back to me i really hope with money in hand i did it straight cash homie wow not too bad [Music] pretty straightforward drive here there's really just one road that takes you all the way and as you get closer there's some signage the parking lot is kind of small it was five left per car but there were plenty of spots open when we got here so we're gonna make our way inside and see this monastery [Music] wow first impressions it's bigger than we both thought and far more like detailed and intricate there's a lot to look at the building itself has a ton going on but even the apartment looking thing all around it has so much beautiful artwork and detail and woodwork up there it is gorgeous [Music] also the setting out here couldn't be more perfect for the monastery just down below the mountains and you look up and you just see these beautiful mountain peaks and the greenery with the clouds rolling over the top and you really start to understand why they picked this location it's incredibly beautiful [Music] these paintings this is what you come to see i think these paintings are crazy beautiful super duper detailed all kinds of what look like biblical stories everywhere i wanted to mention a few visitors notes one entrance to just this part of it is totally free you pay to park but you can come in and take all this in for free there is a museum you have to pay to enter there are restrooms here that are also free which is rare in europe they are a little bit basic bring your own tp and you're gonna have to do a squatty party situation but hey at least they're free [Music] i've kind of gathered when looking at the frescoes all over the outside of the monastery that the bottom portion of the frescoes appear to be depictions of hell or the underworld everything looks very dark very scary lots of demons and then at the very tippy top is where you'll see depictions of jesus in heaven and angels and all that and kind of in the middle depictions of earth very beautiful [Music] there's no filming allowed inside the monastery itself but we went in and it is absolutely beautiful it's also free to enter so you can enter kind of quietly walk around and enjoy i think it's for the best that there's absolutely no filming you can't even take a picture no photography at all because almost everybody i think except for us were actively worshipping you can buy prayer candles and they were doing that lighting them going about their prayers it was a very active religious site so i think it's for the best that everybody stay respectful speaking of which you also need to cover your shoulders and cover your knees dress pretty modestly but otherwise we absolutely recommend it i don't know if i go all the way out of my way from sofia just for this but while you're here do the seven legs do the monastery also just down the road is a cave you can visit which is the cave where the original monk who made this place famous lived for years and years and years you can visit that you can visit the stove pyramids which are in the town of stobe which is where we were this morning it's a really cool rock formation a little bit of hiking out there there seems to be a lot of outdoor activity in this area obviously it's naturally gorgeous so plenty to do and make several day trip out of if you wanted to check out this cute little bakery here at the menu's in bulgarians who can't read it but we were told by our hosts at the guesthouse that we gotta get the mojito which is like a fried bread that comes with some jam and you see some other little people here eating as well so that's what we're gonna get oh they're fresh and hot y'all they smell so good and they were one lev each and then the jelly as well we got the strawberry jelly is one that looks like there's some powdered sugar or something over here on top as well let's go dig in they're fluffier and thicker than i thought they were gonna be i think they put yogurt in here so i'm expecting it to have like a little bit of a tang maybe all right first bite with some powdered sugar that's good it's very soft and doughy on the inside and that exterior has a crisp outside i recommend the powdered sugar very funnel cake vibes but slightly chewier i feel the powdered sugar on that is so good all right i think on this sugary note we're going to round out this video it was kind of more of adventure than we bargained for but i hope you enjoyed coming along we're off to sofia next [Music] you

Channel: Keep Going Places

Views: 247,598

Keywords: bulgaria, bulgaria travel, bulgara, bulgarian food, bulgaria bg, rila monastery, rila national park, seven rila lakes, visit bulgaria, rila lakes, bulgaria mountains, 7 rila lakes, rila bulgaria, traditional bulgarian food, bulgaria vlog, 7 rila lakes bulgaria, places to visit in bulgaria, bulgarian village, bulgaria road trip, bulgaria best places, 7 rila lakes hike, travel vlog, eastern europe, bulgaria holiday, bulgaria food, couple travel

Id: -X14YPts62c

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 24 2022