SLO Hostel Lyon Saxe

SLO Hostel Lyon Saxe is the sensible sibling in the local SLO family (the other being SLO Pentes / Away Hostel up on the Croix-Rousse slopes). Same owners, same basic hostel DNA, but the Saxe location gives you the 3rd-arrondissement advantage: you're at the Saxe-Gambetta metro interchange where Line B meets Line D, which in Lyon terms means one transfer to everywhere — Bellecour, Part-Dieu, Vieux Lyon, Confluence, airport tram.

The building is a mid-century conversion on Rue Bonnefoi, 0.6 miles from Place Bellecour and 0.9 miles from Vieux Lyon. Fifty beds across 4-bed, 6-bed and 8-bed mixed dorms, plus a small number of private rooms. Beds are sturdy metal bunks with privacy curtains and under-bed lockers. Shared bathrooms, each floor has two cabins.

The selling points reviewers keep coming back to: a small interior courtyard you can actually sit in, a kitchen open 07:00-23:00, a genuinely useful breakfast (€6 add-on, includes fresh bread from the Baraban boulangerie), and staff who remember names. There's a ground-floor lounge-bar that stays open until midnight — beer and simple wines, not cocktails — and reviewers praise it as calm rather than rowdy. If you want a proper hostel bar with music and crowds, stay at SLO Pentes instead (owned by same family, 10-minute walk north).

The main trade-off is that Saxe-Gambetta itself is a dull neighbourhood. Residential, 1970s buildings, no nightlife inside a 10-minute walk. For breakfast and lunch you're well served (Rue Bonnefoi and Cours Gambetta have cheap bistros), but dinner means walking or taking the metro. On the positive side, Lyon's Saxe-Gambetta district is flat, safe, and quiet after 22:00 — rare for a city-centre hostel.