The magazine highlights the historic centre of San Cristóbal de La Laguna as an urban model replicated in Havana, Cartagena, and Mexico City. It also emphasizes the Anaga massif and its laurisilva.
The magazine Viajes National Geographic has focused on San Cristóbal de La Laguna as the World Heritage neighbourhood that served as an urban inspiration for an entire continent. The publication underscores that its grid layout, without walls, was the model that colonisers took to America, shaping cities like Old Havana, Cartagena de Indias, or Mexico City.
UNESCO already recognized this exceptional value in 1999 by declaring La Laguna a World Heritage site, precisely for being a unique example of an unfortified colonial city. The original plan, designed by Alonso Fernández de Lugo in 1497 over the Aguere plain, remains almost intact five centuries later.
A walk through history among mansions and convents
The heart of the historic centre beats between the streets Herradores, Obispo Rey Redondo, and San Agustín. In that triangle, the stately mansions, ancient granaries, and shops that made La Laguna the cradle of the Canarian Enlightenment are concentrated. There stands the convent of San Agustín, built in 1515, which housed the first university of the Archipelago.
From the tower of the Concepción, at 28 meters high, one can see a sea of reddish tiles dotted with inner courtyards and wooden balconies. The cathedral, with its neoclassical façade, holds the remains of the Adelantado. Very close by, the palace of Lercaro houses the Museum of History and Anthropology of Tenerife, an essential visit to understand how the Archipelago was governed from this northern plain.
La Siervita, Amaro Pargo, and the hidden treasure
The plaza del Adelantado hides the most novelistic history of La Laguna. In the monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena rests the incorrupt body of sor María de Jesús, known as La Siervita, who died in 1731. Her fame for holiness still draws processions every February, the only time her coffin is displayed. The one who funded her mausoleum was Amaro Pargo, a corsair from La Laguna with a privateering license from Philip V, devoted to the nun to the point of obsession and the protagonist of legends about buried treasures that still fuel searches today. In Tenerife, he is called the Canarian Robin Hood because, according to tradition, he shared part of the loot with the poor. His marble tomb is located in the convent of Santo Domingo.
The city does not live solely on the past. The University of La Laguna, founded in 1792, injects life into the squares and taverns where grilled cheese with mojo and potatoes are served without pretension. The people of La Laguna, who still affectionately refer to their city as Aguere, boast of having the most vibrant atmosphere in Tenerife, especially on Friday nights in the historic quadrangle.
Anaga, the green lung that completes the visit
The second reason for National Geographic's recommendation is the Anaga massif, a Biosphere Reserve since 2015. Its imposing topography is home to laurisilva, a humid forest that covered the Mediterranean twenty million years ago and now survives only in some Atlantic remnants. The TF-12 road leads to Cruz del Carmen, following the trail of the gangocheras, vendors who carried goods on donkey backs to the city markets.
From the visitor centre, routes such as the Forest of Enigmas depart, which traverses the densest area through plant passages that the people of Tenerife call fairy tunnels. There is also the barranco de la Goleta, between Tegueste and Bajamar, which ends in natural pools. The massif was the last stronghold of the aborigines, and the Llano de las Brujas, where, according to legend, local women gathered to invoke the nature gods, is still preserved over the Pedri valley.
For the Canary reader, this international distinction reinforces pride in a heritage that is sometimes taken for granted. La Laguna is not just an open-air museum but a living place where history blends with the daily lives of its residents. Those who have yet to climb the tower of the Concepción or walk the trails of Anaga have a perfect excuse to do so.
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