“Look, Mum! Here we are!” You, watching over me from the heavens, and I, standing here in Calle Santiago, gazing at the Hotel Palacio Solecio — once the palace of Aurelia Sierra Ghiara, widow of Romero, your mother and my grandmother. The house where you lived with her, your six siblings, and little Peti the dog. The place you recalled so often, right up to the end of your days. A home whose memories would make you tremble with emotion, weep with joy, be overcome with nostalgia, relive your childhood and youth, and cling to those precious fragments of the past to savour what happiness truly means.

Much has changed, yes. Yet thanks to your endless stories and my own imagination, as I approach, I can see Grandmother greeting us from the balcony with that graceful wave of her hand — and smiling, always smiling. If anything defined her, it was joy, and that great sense of humour you inherited. Oh, I can’t help it — tears are falling again.

Tell me once more, Mum, your memories:
Yes, I hear you. Facing the building, just as I am now, when you were little there was a café on the ground floor to the left. Los Valles, it was called. Famous throughout Málaga, because its coffee was the best — roasted a second time, right there in your courtyard, richer and stronger for it. I can almost smell it now, taste it too.

And to the right, the tavern Santa Hipólita — though many called it Quitapenas — where laughter and life flowed as easily as the wine.

Oh, Mum… I’m inside now! Standing before the marble staircase. They’ve preserved the first steps, the Italian columns. My tears fall in torrents. How many times you told me of Tarugo, the tiny black dog belonging to Carmen the porter’s family, who lived to the left of the hall. He would dash to you the moment you appeared at the door, leaping into your arms, showered with your kisses. Even when you climbed the stairs, he followed, his little chin bumping each step, determined to reach you. Some neighbours wanted him gone, but you — bold and brave though the youngest of your siblings, “Chiqui” — wrote a heartfelt letter pleading his case. So persuasive it was, that Taruguillo was allowed to stay. You saved him, with words from your heart.

If only these stairs could speak. “La chorraera”, you called it — sliding down the bannisters with your gang of friends, among them Paco Rubia Vila and “Coqui” — none other than Cayetano Utrera Ravassa, who would one day become Mayor of Málaga. Who could have guessed that your childhood playmate and stage partner — you, playing the grandmother with a comic growl in Tell Me a Story, Grandmother — would rise to such heights? How strange, how fateful, that Ravassa, like Solesio, Ghiara, and Picasso, bore a Ligurian name too.

I remember all the families you spoke of with such warmth — the Rubias, Mari Quiqui, Mari Pepa and Jacinto from Macharaviaya, birthplace of the Marqués de la Sonora, the very man linked to Solesio and the card factory… as if history itself kept weaving your lives into the palace’s story.

And Doña Celestina, who only left her house once a year, to buy you a Christmas gift. Pilar Ramos, whose brother owned the grocery shop on the corner. So many names, so many ties, all bound by friendship and kinship.

Oh, Mum… I’m climbing the stairs now. My instinct leads me left at the landing, but the old staircase is gone. I glimpse it though, beyond a door marked “Emergency Exit” — my heart races, I run up, and there it is: Room 213. Grandmother’s favourite number, thirteen. My breath catches. The sign Principal Centro may be gone, but in my mind I see it still.

I open the balcony. My hand trembles on the wrought-iron railing, my feet barely dare touch the tiles, as if they could erase the memories engraved there. From here you once looked out, as did your mother, your brothers, your cousins. The church of Santiago stands before me — eternal, magnificent. I can see Peti bounding towards you, tail wagging, and your sister Pili slipping you sweets. I can hear children’s voices, street vendors crying “mint and caramel”, neighbours greeting one another with warmth. The essence remains, even if the voices are gone.

Inside again, I look to the corner where Grandmother’s charcoal drawing once hung — made at seventeen, it enchanted me as a child. Now the room is different, smaller, transformed into a hotel suite. No long dining table, no tiled floor, no antique furniture, no armchair where Grandmother sang her favourite coplas, Concha Piquer’s Dime que me quieres. And yet… I feel her voice, her presence.

I cannot see Room 214, her bedroom — it belongs now to other guests. Still, I know: Palacio Solecio breathes again, reborn as a beautiful hotel. A marvel. Warm, serene, with traces of our history in every corner.

Do you remember, Mum? On the urn that held your ashes were the words: “If you can remember me, I will always be with you.” That is why I write this — so no one forgets what this place has meant, not just to our family, but to so many others. Palacio Solecio has soul, life, and heart. It was your nest, your haven on earth, even in the hard years after the war.

I knew you would like this idea. And I know Grandmother would too.
Give her my love. Give it to them all.

Signed,
Your daughter, who loves you dearly and will never forget you.