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From the monastery's eastern gate, a path descends towards the river and the Church of the Presentation of the Virgin , a decrepit late eighteenth-century structure surrounded by the graves of several generations of monks. The chapel on the church's upper storey is richly decorated with scenes from the life of the Virgin. A painting in the porch shows the Archangel Michael stomping on the body of a bearded wrongdoer. Look out for the kostnitsa or ossary on the ground floor, housing the skulls of former monks. Rila Monastery is the starting point for numerous hikes , as well as an agreeable short stroll to St John of Rila's cave (2hr return trip). The trail begins by the road about 2km beyond the east gate: a fairly obvious path bears left about 100m past the Bachkova cheshma restaurant, leading up through the woods to the Chapel of Sveti Luka after twenty minutes. The chapel, named after a nephew of St John of Rila who acted as the ageing hermit's servant, contains frescos depicting him with the three other hermit-superstars of the Bulgarian-Macedonian borderlands: Gavril of Leshnovo, Prohor of Pchinya, and Ioakim of Osogovo. Twenty minutes further on, the Chapel of St John of Rila is built into the rock beside the cave or " Miracle Hole " where he spent his last twenty years. Having made it this far, most visitors plunge into the (admittedly rather dark) cave and work their way up through a fissure in the rock, emerging a few seconds later on the hillside just above - a reasonably unstrenuous task for the moderately fit. Traditionally, pilgrims were required to pass through this hole before proceeding to the monastery, and the conscience-smitten were regularly unable to do so. These people were judged to be sinners and forced to go home to repent for a year before coming back to Rila.
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