Tenerife Churches

The island's principal church is at Candelaria on the east coast, a basilica holding the image of the Virgin who is patron of the whole archipelago, with nine bronze Guanche chiefs lined up along the sea in front of it. It is a genuine pilgrimage site and the August procession is the largest religious event in the Canaries.

La Laguna carries the concentration: the cathedral, the sixteenth-century Iglesia de la Concepcion with its tower over the old town, and several convents. The northern towns each have a parish church worth the ten minutes, usually with a carved wooden ceiling in the Mudejar style that the islands took from Andalusia.