Hotel Lion

Interesting Street Views!

I only had an overnight stay this time round here in Sofia between trains as I came down from Vidin before heading eastwards for Varna the following day and this little hotel fitted the bill perfectly. The Lion is about a five-minute walk from the station, just across the Lion Bridge, and is a simple 3-star hotel with good-sized, well-furnished, clean and comfortable rooms and friendly multi-lingual staff.

Having booked online check-in was simply a matter of handing over my passport and getting my room key. I dropped my bags off, had a quick splash and decided to have a beer in the hotel bar/restaurant whilst deciding how to spend my evening. Normally I'm not a great fan of hotel bars but this really is a pleasant bar, separated by a glass door from the reception area, and thus functions as more of a local bar. The barmaid was friendly and spoke good English, the restaurant wasn't busy and the chef came out of his kitchen to pass the time of day and one beer became two, two became three and I opted to eat there too.

The menu is pretty much a pizza-style menu but does some have some local dishes and asking for advice from the barmaid I decided on the Pile Kavarma Kebap and, still following her recommendation, tried a bottle of a Plovdiv Mavrud - just the job!! Dinner was delish, the wine was very good and a pleasant evening in the bar was had!

I like this little hotel, friendly and informal and the internet connection (8 Leva for 24 hrs) was spot-on and for my 40 Euros definitely excellent value.

Unique Quality: My room directly overlooked the Lion Bridge which as night drew in revealed quite an interesting tableau of street life. I already knew from my previous visit to Sofia that this area has quite a few working girls and I had already guessed that there were a few guys too who were definitely working their own scams and so it was interesting to watch over the course of the evening as I got up to stretch my legs from time to time whilst attempting to catch-up on a bit of writing. What the girls were doing was pretty obvious but what the couple of guys were doing just hanging around half-the-night, sometimes standing at the pedestrian crossings and then wandering off when the little green man appeared I can only speculate....

• Opinion of Price: about average
• Related to: Food and Dining, Wine Tasting, Trains

Hotel Lion Photo: Hotel From Lion Bridge

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