Corsairs, Nuns and Ghosts: A La Laguna Walking Tour

San Cristóbal de La Laguna's chessboard streets have stood untouched since Spanish conquerors laid them out without walls five centuries ago. On this walking tour, you'll follow corsair Amaro Pargo's legend, from his winking tomb to the nun who claimed to save his life. You'll also hear ghost stories of lovers and haunted mansions. This UNESCO World Heritage city's street plan was later copied across colonial Latin America.

The tour starts at the Church of Santo Domingo, where Amaro Pargo's tombstone bears a skull and crossbones that seem to wink. From there, you'll cross Plaza del Adelantado, the city's original heart, past the hermitage of San Miguel and traces of a 1591 gold rush. You'll reach the Convent of Santa Catalina de Siena, where a nun's body was found undecayed after death, and a triple-locked coffin still opens once a year.

Along Calle San Agustín, you'll pass Casa Lercaro, said to be the most haunted house in the Canary Islands after a bride's tragic death in its courtyard well. You'll also see Casa Salazar, whose stone façade alone survived a 2006 fire that gutted the bishop's palace. The tour ends at the Church of La Concepción, where a canvas of Saint John the Evangelist reportedly sweated during a plague, said to have ended the outbreak.

On this 30-minute walking tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Hear how novice nun Úrsula and Captain Jerónimo Grimón tried to flee before his beheading in 1651
• Step inside La Laguna Cathedral to see the Canary Islands' only recorded case of religious immurement
• Visit the Cabrera Pinto Institute, where novelist Benito Pérez Galdós studied, later used as a civil war prison
• Find a bronze plaque mapping 1588 La Laguna, showing where its now-vanished lagoon once lapped the shore
• Meet Alonso de Nava y Grimón in bronze, president of the Canary Islands' first independent government in 1808
• Stand beside a dragon tree, planted over two centuries ago, that may have witnessed that government's birth

By the time you reach the Church of La Concepción, you'll understand why La Laguna blends documented fact with whispered legend.