TOUR COST:

Option 1: Guide –driver

€ 176 for 1- 3 people

1. Transportation by private A/C car/van

2. Professional Guide Service

Option 2: English-speaking driver

€ 110 for 1-3 people

1. Transportation by private A/C car/van

2. General guidance for Bulgaria.

Duration: 9 - 10 hours

Tour information:

This is a full day trip from Sofia to Plovdiv and Backovo monastery. The distance from Sofia to Plovdiv is 150 km and takes about 2 hours drive. Bachkovo Monastery is located 30 km south of Plovdiv, in the Rhodope Mountains, around 30-40 minutes drive from Plovdiv.

Departure is 08:30 in the morning from Sofia. Return to your hotel in Sofia would be expected at around 17:30-18:00 in the late afternoon.

Please note, that these timings are approximate and depend on actual traffic conditions.

Sightseeing information:

Our driver and guide will pick you from your hotel.

Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second biggest city, which treasures a history that goes back thousands of years, traces of which have survived to the present day. The Thracians founded Plovdiv during the Neolithic period in the 2nd millennium BC. Later, during the period of the Roman Empire, it was a major centre of the province of Thrace; many archaeological finds dating from the 2nd – 3rd century, testify for those glorious times. The Old Quarter was built in the 18th-19th centuries as the centre of the Bulgarian National Revival architecture. Along steep cobblestone lanes, behind stone walls and iron-studded heavy oak gates, one could glimpse at verdure and flowers, surrounding the typical Plovdiv symmetrical houses with their painted facades, oriels and jetties and grid windows. The St. Constantine and St. Helena Church completed in 1832, contains murals painted in 1836 by Zachary Zograph, the best known Bulgarian National Revival painter.

Sample list of recommended sites of interest:

• The Roman Forum, Stadium, Fortress Walls, and above all, the fabulous Amphitheatre, which was built during the time of Emperor Trajan (98-117). It has 28 rows with tiers of marble seats, which can accommodate over 3 500 spectators and today is still functioning

• The Old Town with spectacular architecture of the National Revival period (18th – 19th century)

Bachkovo Monastery

Bachkovo Monastery is one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe. Located along the reaches of the Assenitsa River, the Bachkovo monastery ranks second after the Rila Monastery both with regard to size, and to architectural, artistic and literary significance. It was founded by the Georgian Grigorii Bakuriani in 1083. Almost immediately after its foundation, the monastery turned into a wealthy landowner, its properties stretching as far as Salonika.

In 1344 Tsar Ivan Alexander established his rule over the Rodopite, populated the monastery with Bulgarians, and generously donated to it. His full-length portrait stands in the narthex, of the upper floor of the ossuary - the only building remained from the mediaeval monastery after its destruction in 16th c. standing alone in the woods today, apart from the new "complex". Spared during the first wave of enslavement Bachkovo monastery became the prison of the last Bulgarian Patriarch Euthymius, who was exiled here, where he continued his literary work. The monastery's biography is inevitably reflected in the architectural face of the ossuary. Its general idea is foreign to old Bulgarian art, and is clearly influenced by Syrian and Armenian-Georgian building. At the same time, the construction of parallel rows of stones and bricks was unknown there, and that is the construction method of Pliska and Preslav - the capitals of the First and the Second Bulgarian Kingdom.

The Cathedral Church of the Virgin Mary (dating from 1604) is the place where a valuable wonder-working icon of the Virgin Mary Eleusa from 1310 is kept. This church was built in the place of the monastery's oldest church destroyed by the Turks. The murals in the spacious narthex were painted in 1643. The two central icons in the iconostasis are exactly dated - 1793 (the icons of The Holy Virgin and Jesus Christ).  The frescoes in the nave were painted much later, in 1850, by Joan Mosch.  The woodwork - iconostasis, bishop's throne and the like, dates from the 18th century.

The wonder-working icon of Virgin Mary Eleusa,  Bachkovo Monastery, 1311.

Virgin Mary, 11 century,  Bachkovo Monastery,