My friend and I planned a 12 day tour of Bulgaria for October 2006, and the agency offered this hotel for our 3-day stay at the start and 2-night stay at the end of our tour. This was our best hotel experience in the tour, given that we stayed primarily at 3-star hotels. First, the rooms are spacious; many have balconies; the wall controls offer air cooling anfd heating with a remote; there were lovely terry robes; the hotel restaurant is a gourmet experience, and the included buffet breakfast is a feast, including fruit and Bulgarian yogurt along with anything else you can think of. The building is modest in scale, and very attractively laid out. The staff speaks English and is very cooperative. We longed for the Meg while we traveled the country (which we loved, but never found a peer to the Meg). We would stay there again.

It is important to know, however, that the location is not walking distance to anything, although it is near central attractions.

I stayed at this hotel in July 2006 and can advise that it is in a reasonable location, is very clean and well maintained and that the staff are all friendly and proficient.

Most of the staff speak very good English so no problem there, the only slight niggles are that if you get a room at the very front of the hotel you can notice some noise form the main road, and the local "street dogs" during the night, but in general this was not to much of an issue.

All rooms are very spacious and have a/c and mini bar ( at western prices), the restaurant is o.k for breakfast but didn’t seem to geared up to provide a very vast range for dinner, they also have a very nice bar / lounge, but again at western prices if , i.e 5Lv for bottled beer, however a short walk or tram ride to the center of the city will cost about 70st i.e about 25p sterling, and you will find a vast array of cheap and very good restaurants serving anything from traditional Bulgarian foods, through to more Western options, there are also about 4 McDonalds it seems ( not sure if that is a good thing or not!).

Generally food and drink is of a very good standard with plenty of fresh vegetables / salads and Bulgarian stews Ect. most places are very cheap here if you eat out , average meal for 2 including drinks £10-£12 GBP, average beer including western brands is 1,20 – 2.00Lv ( 80 pence!) .

Sofia is changing beyond recognition at present with the recent opening of 2 new major western style shopping malls one with anIMAX cinema Ect and it will be interesting to see how the city looks in 5 years time.

Nonetheless still plenty of history to be seen with the old churches Ect. and well worth a visit.

My wife and I stayed at this hotel for one night and made the mistake of falling for what appears to be a very nice resturant. The Resturant which is part of the hotel is very well set out and decorated, but the food and the service is something else.Firstly we were seated by the outside door not a problem you would think, but the locals seem to have a problem with closing doors and it soon became very tiresome to have keep closing the outside door, the staff seemed oblivious to this problem dspite constantly patroling the room. My wife order a duck dish which was so tough that you could sole a shoe with it, she complained about this and was offered a replacement meal however not before the waiter arguing that the meat was ok and the rest of the staff going into a huddle to duscuss the complaint with lots of pointed looks etc. My main course of rabbit and bacon and the chilli tomato source that went with it was also tasteless and insipid. The first courses and deserts are so memorable that i cannot remember them. The whole experiance was very poor of what appears to be a good resturant. The hotel its self is very nice and i would recommend it for any one visiting Sofia but what i say is what ever you do is do not eat in the resturant!.