Along P. Paterno Street in Tacloban City, stands one of Leyte’s most storied landmark, Hotel Alejandro. At first glance, it looks like an elegant white mansion with arched windows and stately columns, quietly exuding old-world charm amid the city’s hum of tricycles and vendors. But once you step inside, you realize that this hotel is not just a place to rest, it’s a place that tells Tacloban’s history through its very walls.

I stayed at Hotel Alejandro during one of my visits to Tacloban, and from the moment I walked through its doors, I felt as if I had entered both a home and a museum. The lobby is lined with vintage photographs and wartime memorabilia, each frame narrating a chapter of the city’s past.

Built in 1932 as the ancestral house of Dr. and Mrs. Alejandro Montejo, this building once stood witness to the turbulence of World War II. During the Japanese occupation and the liberation of Leyte, its rooms were filled not with guests, but with officers and soldiers, strategies and uncertainties. To this day, that sense of history lingers, gracefully preserved in the hotel’s polished wood, framed photos, and timeless air.