"RILA MONASTERY - The Spirit of... " a Rilski Manastir Travel Page by desert_princess

If there is one place I recommend to see in Bulgaria,it will be The Rila Monastery.It is the heart and soul of Bulgarians, a cradle of the ancient slavic spirit that preserved our nation through the 5 centuries of turkish invasion. A real piece of art , wherever your eyes turn, you just can't get enough of its beauty....
Situated 120km from Sofia, 52 km from Dupnitsa and 22km from the village of Rila,the Rila monastery is nestled in the heart of Rila Mountain in the narrow canyon of Rilska river ,surrounded by mountain peaks up to 2700m . The Monastery is build at 1 147m of altitude over an area of 8 800 square meters,from which the wings occupy 4 500sq.m.,the church 1000sq.m., the Hreljo tower 80 and the inner yard 3 220 sq.m. Its unique and authentic atmosphere where you get the feeling time stopped some centuries ago while you walk from floor to floor and the wooden stairs crack under your feet..u can almost smell the flavors in the old monastery kitchen with an endless black chimney finishing somewhere very high up above the 3rd floor...
As about the church u see it's all painted with orthodox paintings from our best ever icon painters......
In the arcades surrounding the church from all 4sides the nuns and monks are still living, and famous apostles hid back from the Turks.

see what UNESCO says about this site.

LET ME TAKE YOU ON A >>>>MONASTERY VIRTUAL TOUR Page 1

08 oct 05 - On the 08 oct I started the reconstruction work of my Monastery page as totally unsatisfied with its previous content . Wrote the first 6 tips - great for a start ,got exhausted and lost inspiration....
After a sleepless night and lots of exchanged snowballs on yahoo messenger with .celticbhoy07 ,on the 17 oct 05 the major part of the body of this page was built or rewritten. Excuse me in making so many tips - I just couldn't stop my muse this night....
In the mean time ,some strange stuff happened...I got a "continue browsing" button out of the blue , just in between " Save and add more tips"and "Edit this Tip" - it must be the full moon's fault - Ghosts of the net are fooling around on VT.... I have the honor to have acheived the impossible - 8 pics per tip - a mutation of VT -see the "Monastery Corridors" tip

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