The Rila Mountain lays in the south west of Bulgaria, 60 miles (100 km) south of Sofia.

The Rila Mountain with their beautiful rugged landscape has so much to offer!

The Rila’s numerous peaks tower over 2500m with the highest of them, Musala, reaching nearly (2925m).

Among them more than 200 mountains lakes can be found at great heights, together with diverse wild life and over 2000 different plants.

This region also boasts Bulgaria’s most famous monastery, the Rila Monastery, and the country’s oldest winter resort Borovets.

The Rila mountains seems to be a piece of the Alps thrown into the heart of the Balkans with its 130 alpine peaks above 2000m, glacial valleys and lakes.

The snow cover on the parts of average altitude and the alpine parts often exceeds 2m.

Eastern Rila is the highest part of the mountain where one can visit Rila's highest mount, Moussala (2925m) and the 10 top peaks and the highest lake in Rila-the Glacial lake (2709m).

North-western Rila is the home to some of the symbols of Bulgarian alpinism and mountaineering, Malyovitsa and Kupenite peaks and the biggest and significant lake groups, the most famous and scenic of all - the 7 Rila lakes.

Many of the marked tourist hiking trails and high-mountain rock climbing tours originate from here.

Rambling

There are many trails around Borovets that cater for most ability levels and are mostly well signposted. 

The most popular and best known walk is the route to the Black Rock, more commonly known as Chernata Skala.

Strolling

For visitors who want to take a gentle walk through the beautiful flower covered meadows, wonderful pine forests and fresh meandering streams, then Borovets is where you can do this.

Hiking

For the hiking enthusiast you will find a myriad of trails through the fabulous, enchanting mountain environment.  For the more challenging hikers, there is the walk to Mount Moussala, which will take approximately 6 hours from the upper Gondola station to Sitnyakovo Palace.


Snow shoeing in Bulgaria

Just because the snow comes, it doesn’t mean walking in the mountains stops. 

You can explore the wonderful Rila Mountains on snowshoes and walk to the wonderful Rila Monastery.

Snowshoeing is not technical and a popular winter sport in Bulgaria although it is based on necessity rather than a pleasurable pastime.

For those who had no reliable means of transport in winter through the deep snows, the snowshoe was the only means of trekking and hunting.

The snowshoe is simple in design but effectively allows the hiker to trek across large areas of snow, feeling almost as if you are floating across the surface of the snow.

Modern snowshoes have changed very little from the original.

The principles of snowshoeing are very easy to learn, full instructions can even be given by a local guide.

If you can walk, you can snowshoe!!!

Hiking The Rila's