I stayed here for two nights. Situated in center of Sofia and would be a good option for you, if you want to explore the city...

My wife and I, we made a short trip to Sofia, to compare the life in Bulgaria with the life in our homeland - Poland. In fact, it is quite similar. The buildings in Sofia are much more destroyed than in Warsaw, there are not that many new buildings as in Warsaw, but you can see the same international shops.

The hotel is located close to the city center. There are construction works outside - they build Metro line & station, which should be ready in 2012. It is a little noisy when you open the window - but we didn't have any problems to sleep with windows closed. We had room number 32 - pretty big and clean - for 46 Euro/room/night including breakfast.

The breakfast is served in a small cafe which is close to the hotel. I have read some unhappy reviews about the breakfast - but it looks like they had also read the reviews and now it is better.

Sofia is not really a touristic city - one can visit every interesting place within one day. What I can recommend is synagogue. What I don't recommend is Museum of Archeology (too expensive comparing to the things you can see there).

The taxi from airport to the hotel should cost 10-15 leva (around 5-8 Euro). The taxi driver tried to cheat on us - but we know taxi drivers in Warsaw so we were prepared for such a behaviour ;-).

You can take the money from ATM machines - they are everywhere around. There are some restaurants, but it was pretty difficult to find a nice restaurant with good Bulgarian food.

There is food market just close to the hotel (bul. Stefan Stambolov) - if you would like to buy some vegetables or fruits.

+ Rooms are very big, clean and warm
+ Although there was a construction site in front of the hotel (they are building a metro line that goes along the center of Sofia) and although the hotel is situated near a big crossroad, the rooms were surprisingly quiet - had a good rest there
+ Friendly staff
+ Very good prices.
- Utilities in the room are a bit dated
- No hotel parking (but there are paid parking yards nearby)

All in all we had an excellent stay at the Lion hotel.

Tip: Don't miss the cakes and pastry at the cafeteria on the ground floor of the hotel!!

Lovely hotel with great cafe where you also eat breakfast, next to KFC and city markets for great bargains and 5 to 10 min stroll to underground and all tourist hot spots. so many shops, something for everyone right on the doorstep to this hotel, where the room are a 3 star standard if not a little more, all toiletries provided and nice beds, views over the main lion bridge.there is a lift to all floors. book direct with hotel for best rates, we paid more on internet, but when we got there they had promotion of 30 euro per night !