Yep! Danon, you got it - take it away!
Its a beautiful place, by the way, Rila ... hidden up high in a SW-Bulgarian valley, in the mountains ... pretty.
Dont make the mistake of trying to settle down for the night down in Simitli, though - nothing there.
Do, however, travel further down SW to Sandanski, a pleasant, lively town. Do also, especially, use that occasion to trek into the astonishing limestone mountains near Melnik - see
http://www.mimipet.com/melnik.asp - amazing.
That whole valley is nice, and markedly different from the rest of Bulgaria, Sofia in particular - back in '94, anyway - it seemed more "up", more outgoing. Plus there can be a clear weather difference. Sometime in the late nineties I went up from Thessaloniki to Sofia, and Sofia was bitterly cold, slippery icy streets and a continual blast of snow in the face. As soon as the train curved back towards Blagoevgrad and then, Simitli and Sandanski, however, snow disappeared and the sun set the hills in a lovely light - like in some fairy-tale episode in a Disney movie.
