To spot the Llanes Casino, look for a grand, peach-colored building right in the heart of the town, with ornate decorations, arched windows, and two tower-like structures on top-it's impossible to miss with its showy modernist flair standing out among the simpler houses nearby.
Now, imagine you’re standing exactly where the old covered market made of iron and glass buzzed until the late 1800s. But today, you’re greeted by the Casino de Llanes-built in 1910, a building that practically shouts, “Look at me!” with its flamboyant balconies, swirling floral decorations, and those mysterious female faces staring down from the façade. The townsfolk wanted a place that was more fabulous than any market, so the “Indianos”-those who sailed off to the Americas and came back rich-decided they deserved somewhere grand to play cards, gossip, and dance. So, they hired the architect Juan Álvarez Mendoza, who was still a young buck and very much in love with the latest French fashions. And it shows! Every inch is a nod to modernism, with a little extra drama thrown in-just like my Aunt Maribel at a family dinner.
Step inside (in your mind-I wouldn’t recommend storming the door!), and you’d find white lacquered doors, mirrors straight out of Venice, and a swooping staircase that looks like it belongs in a fairy tale. Even the sofa in the lobby oozes style. During the Spanish Civil War, all that glamour hit pause-it became a meeting house and courthouse, not a place for cocktails. But after the war, the laughter, music, and endless debates about who truly played the best hand came back. Honestly, if you wanted luxury and wild stories a hundred years ago-this was the place to be!
