after a couple of days, mina’s dad let us borrow the car and we went to bulgaria’s most famous monastery, rila monastery. this monastery of built by holy ivan in the 10^th century. it sheltered bulgaria culture during 500 years of rule by the turkish and the byzantines. the original monastery was destroyed and the current one was rebuilt between 1834 and 1837. we also hiked about an hour and a half to the cave where you crawl through to symbolize rebirth. it was a good day hike in the mountains.