Hotel Maria Cristina

The grand building across the river is where Coco Chanel held fashion shows, Elizabeth Taylor drank cocktails, and Bette Davis held court during the film festival. It is also where Spanish military commanders set up headquarters during the Civil War. That range of tenants tells you everything about the twentieth century in one building.

The Hotel Maria Cristina opened on July ninth, nineteen twelve. Queen Regent Maria Cristina was the first person to walk through the doors -- fitting, since the place was named after her. The architect was Charles Mewes, the same man who designed the Ritz hotels in both Madrid and Paris. If you have ever been to either of those, you will recognise the DNA: that particular blend of Belle Epoque grandeur that says money without quite screaming it.

In its early decades, the hotel was the centre of high society in San Sebastian. Coco Chanel staged fashion presentations in the salons. European aristocrats and industrialists filled the rooms every summer. Then the Civil War arrived and the ballrooms became strategy rooms. Military officers slept where the glitterati had danced.

When the San Sebastian International Film Festival launched in nineteen fifty-three, the hotel became Hollywood's Basque Country headquarters. Every September, the lobby fills with directors, actors, and producers. Elizabeth Taylor stayed here. Bette Davis stayed here. Woody Allen, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep -- the guest list reads like an Oscar nomination reel.

The building sits right on the Urumea River, facing the Victoria Eugenia Theatre across the bridge. Together they form a kind of cultural gateway to the city. The hotel has been renovated multiple times but retains its original facade and that unmistakable early twentieth-century elegance. Some buildings just know what they are.