All were defiant as they played to the cameras, waving to the crowd like World Cup winners, on the granite and marble steps of Mr Franco's gubernatorial palace.

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Each bright room is clad in local reclaimed wood, Tuscan flagstone, muted granite and Carrara marble.

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They trusted only banks with granite facades, marble floors and thick bars on the tellers' cages--and passbooks they could fondle.

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You enter it by a stairway reminiscent of pre-Roman burial sites, pass through a narrow corridor and enter an imposing square burial chamber with a pink marble granite sarcophagus in the centre.

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While the public areas still wear their Dorothy Draper-era, retina-stinging magenta-and-emerald floral patterns, the 682 guest rooms have flat-panel TVs, granite-and-marble bathrooms, and feather-top beds.

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The facade is austere white marble and black granite, with a towering auditorium rising above the main building.

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