Cathedral of San Cristóbal de La Laguna

The altarpiece of the Virgin of Los Remedios fills a transept chapel with gilded Baroque carving from the first half of the eighteenth century. It is the largest altarpiece in the Canary Islands, set with seven panels attributed to Hendrick van Balen, Van Dyck's teacher, and the Virgin sits at its centre on a silver throne with a golden crescent moon at her feet. Across the church hangs Cristóbal Hernández de Quintana's large canvas of the Souls of Purgatory.

Behind the 1820 facade, the Neo-Gothic interior runs in three wide aisles to an ambulatory around the chancel, the only one in the Canary Islands. The pulpit is Carrara marble, carved by Pasquale Bocciardo. The treasury is the largest collection of goldsmiths' work in the islands, with two silver candlesticks that are the largest in Spain, and the cathedral keeps relics of the two Canarian saints, José de Anchieta and Pedro de San José Betancur.

• Entry is paid, and the visit comes with an audio guide that also takes in the treasury.
• This is a working cathedral and parish: services can keep visitors waiting at the door, so leave some slack in your day.
• The chapter house next door, an eighteenth-century Canarian house, holds 160 Byzantine icons, the largest such collection in Spain.
• The nearest public toilets, free of charge, are about 420 m away; the tourist information office is about 210 m away.

The cathedral stands on its own square in the historic centre of La Laguna, and the copper-clad dome, the highest point in the old town, shows above the rooftops as you walk in through the streets around it. The nearest stop, Deán Palahi, is about 70 m away, and Tabares de Cala about 230 m. The two car parks closest to the cathedral, about 150 and 170 m away, are private, so do not plan on leaving a car beside it. The tourist information office is about 210 m from the cathedral.

Best: a weekday, when the doors stay open from morning to late afternoon without a break.

Avoid: Holy Week and the feasts of early September, unless the processions are what you came for.

Weekends split the day with a closure over lunch, while in Holy Week the brotherhoods of La Laguna make their penitential station here, on 8 September the Virgin of Los Remedios is carried through the streets, and from 9 to 14 September the Christ of La Laguna stays in the cathedral.