Hotel Sofia

We booked two nights at Hotel Sofia in Catania with our 8 month old daughter. Our flight got in late, so we reached the area at 2130hrs. Finding the place was hard, with virtually no signage, and getting to the second floor meant going through a large open gate and a dimly lit lift area. Given the look of the place, we were almost relieved to find the hotel door without first stumbling across a murdered corpse. Nobody answered the bell after several tries. After 30 minutes, another guest arrived and let us into the “reception” area. I called the hotel number from the empty desk, and a gentleman explained that our keys were in a safe on the main street. The room was huge, but looked like a dirty, neglected tip. One end of the curtain had broken away from the rail and was hanging down. It was sauna hot, the shower enclosure had exposed electrics, and there were ants and flying insects. We would have left right then if it hadn't been so late and our daughter hadn't been exhausted. During the night, the air-conditioning groaned loudly again and again, and barely cooled anything. I stayed awake on guard after someone tried to get into our room on two separate occasions. The heat, with my body temperature around 300 degrees, at least made it easy to stay awake. My wife and daughter didn't appreciate that. The bed seemed ready to collapse and squeaked like a container ship full of rats, leaving my daughter terrified of rodents. In the morning we pushed through smoke in the corridor, thinking there might be a fire or that amount Etna had erupted and was about to bury Catania like modern day Pompei. Instead, people were smoking away, including staff, in this supposedly non-smoking hotel. We couldn't communicate with the receptionist on duty because my Italian is about as poor as his English. We found another hotel and left a day early, not a moment too soon. There's no vehicle access or parking at all. If you want to book a room for your ex-mother-in-law and hope she never comes back from the depths of this hellhole, choose Hotel Sofia right away. Would I stay here again? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

The area is nice, and there's enough to do for a day, but I wouldn't stay here. My room was across the stairwell in another hotel, with no city view, just garbage cans in an alley. When I asked to cancel the second night, they refused and said it wasn't possible. I'd paid an extra 10 euros at booking for the option to cancel if needed, so being denied felt like highway robbery. It wasn't about the money, it was the principle of them taking it without explaining. I was frustrated and upset all day. The rooms are dated, and there's basically no service. Staff go home at 8 pm and come back at 8 am. This is not a HOTEL, it's a HOSTILE.

Our balcony had no view, though the hotel is right in the center and close to everything. The included breakfast was delicious and served next door. The rooms were spacious, clean, and neat, and the staff were friendly and helpful. The only issue was a slightly rusty shower, with calculus buildup that kept the water from coming out evenly. Still, a great place to stay in Catania.

They put us in a different property next to Hotel Sofia, which felt suspicious from the start. Though the room had been described as ready, its condition was unacceptable. There was mold all over the bathroom, stained curtains with some unknown red substance, badly damaged walls, and cockroaches crawling around. Red nail polish was smeared on both the fridge and walls, apparently left by a previous guest. The towels and bed linen had an awful smell, which made the stay very unpleasant. The TV wouldn't connect to Wi-Fi, and even a small bottle of minibar water costs €2.