For many years it was one of the most characteristic hotels in Sanremo.

It was not the large Belle-Epoque style hotel, but the central hotel, convenient for short stays.

The sign of the Maltese Cross (Hotel or Albergo depending on the epoch) has camped for years on the corner of Via Palazzo and Piazza Colombo in a building that still exists today where there are no traces of the ancient hotel that offered a restaurant, the possibility of wedding banquets and one of the first fixed price menus offered in Sanremo (since 1914).

Mr. Catena, its owner, also managed the "de la Réserve" in Boulevard Victor Hugo, the current Corso Matuzia.

In the postcard on the left which recalls the old Maltese Cross, you can also see the existence on its right of the hotel-restaurant of the Centre situated where, until recently, a well-known delicatessen was located.

On the right instead, the picture shows the Hotel during the laying of the tram tracks in Piazza Colombo (1912).

The hotel had a very popular restaurant. The most typical and requested dish was snails and snails (ciui) from the ditches and high vineyards of the Sanremo area, cooked with garlic, oil, anchovies and white wine in terracotta pots and served with parsley and basil. There is also a rich choice of Ligurian and Tuscan wines.

(source: Una Stagione lunga cent'anni, by Bruno Monticone; private images)