I am wondering if anyone can recommend nice accomodations in Monteverde plus a great spot for dinner. Celebrating a birthday while there and want to enjoy something special.

Thanks for your help!

Great spot for dinner - Restaurant de Lucia! Delicious dinner!

We liked El Sapo Dorado in Monteverde for lodging, and I'll second dfarmer's rec of Restaurant de Lucia. Had a "major" birthday dinner there myself a few years back.

Hotel Fonda Vela is a very nice place to stay, and it has an excellent restaurant. the sea bass dishes are very, very good.

About a month ago we went to a relatively new place called "Sophia's. It's 1 block off the main road on the way to the Ecological Farm. It was fantastic - not typical Costa Rican food, more like fusion cusine that you would find in a NYC restaurant and everything we had was delicious. Very inexpensive too. It's very nice inside.

We ate dinner at Morpho's as well which was also excellent but much more casual.

We stayed at El Sapo Dorado < http://www.sapodorado.com/ >, which was AMAZING! It was soooo incredibly peaceful and nice. Rustic wood walls. Everything new & clean. Such a beautiful place! Low-season rate was $85/night + tax. It got really dark & you could look out of the full length glass windows and see the stars... or sit on the porch... They gave us a flashlight to use, fyi. In the morning, you could hear the birds & crickets, so amazing! There are two huge rooms, each with a king bed, a table with chairs and a bathroom with a shower & hair dryer. No TV. No clock, but the front desk was very nice to tell us what time it was anytime we needed. They also did wake-up calls.

On the first night, we ate at the Sapo Dorado Restaurant, which was candlelit and very romantic. They supposedly have a great chef... I had no complaints! We had a goat cheese appetizer and an amazing ginger/orange soup and a fabulous bottle of red wine. The next night, we ate dinner at Johnny’s Pizzeria, which we were able to walk to from El Sapo Dorado. We split pizza & pasta, delicious! We noticed that the prices at Johnny’s were really good. Think we paid about $45 for an appetizer, two entrees, bottle of wine, incl. tip & tax. Again, it was candlelit and very romantic - Not exactly what you would expect from a Pizza place! Restaurant listings for Monteverde, including the places we visited can be found at this site: http://www.monteverdetours.com/facts...estaurants.htm

Good luck! Happy Birthday!

Malia

Sophia's was awesome - we ate their twice it so was good with excellent prices. They even had a sax player. Pizza Johnny is involved in some local contraversy re: water diversions. We stayed at Monteverde Lodge which was pretty nice. Meals were not cheap there however.

I stayed at the Fonda Vela and it was spectacular.

Most of the restaurants in Monteverde are simular.