The Department of Cultural Heritage of the City Council of La Laguna has launched the guided tour programme ‘In the footsteps of Torriani’, an initiative aimed at 3rd and 4th year primary school pupils in the municipality’s public schools. The programme is part of the celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of La Laguna’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, an event that celebrates the exceptional universal value of its urban layout and historical legacy.

The activity consists of an interpretive tour of the historic city centre, guided by professionals and enlivened by a puppeteer, who will play a very special character: the Italian engineer Leonardo Torriani, author of the oldest surviving map of La Laguna. Through his character, the schoolchildren will experience a journey through time, allowing them to learn how the city was founded and how it has developed over the centuries.

Each visit is designed to be participatory and accessible, adapted to the age of the children, and has a playful approach that turns learning into an adventure. Thus, the students will enjoy an immersive experience that combines history, games, songs and local legends, with the aim of fostering a sense of belonging and awakening their interest in the historical and cultural values that have made La Laguna the only World Heritage City in the Canary Islands.

The programme will run until 28 October and will include 27 guided tours, reaching 1,200 schoolchildren. Each tour includes stops at iconic locations, such as the Instituto de Canarias Cabrera Pinto, the Museo de los Sabandeños, the Cathedral and the Casa de los Capitanes, where the activity ends and the children will arrive singing the song commemorating the 25th anniversary.

The Councillor for Cultural Heritage, Adolfo Cordobés, accompanied the pupils of CEIP Narciso Brito on today’s tour, during which he highlighted that “this initiative not only celebrates our past, but also represents a commitment to the future, involving young people in the defence and knowledge of our heritage and in the transmission of these values to their families. Furthermore, this type of action has proven to be a very effective way of sowing awareness of heritage from childhood, of making our children recognise themselves as heirs and custodians of a legacy that belongs to us all”.

For her part, art historian and tour guide Elisa Falcón, representative of Localiando and co-author of the project alongside Luzbel Armas, pointed out that ‘we wanted to design a fun and participatory experience that would spark children’s curiosity and allow them to understand that heritage is not something distant, but a living part of their everyday environment.’

“Torriani es el hilo conductor perfecto para este viaje en el tiempo, porque les permite a entender cómo se construyó la ciudad, cómo se vivía hace siglos y por qué La Laguna es hoy Patrimonio Mundial. Todo con una propuesta que combina rigor histórico con dinamismo, para que cada participante se sienta parte de la historia que está descubriendo”, añadió Falcón.

‘Torriani is the perfect guide for this journey through time, because he helps you understand how the city was built, how people lived centuries ago, and why La Laguna is now a World Heritage Site. All this is done with an approach that combines historical rigour with dynamism, so that each participant feels part of the history they are discovering,’ added Falcón.

Understanding heritage

With ‘In the footsteps of Torriani’, La Laguna reaffirms its commitment to inclusive, creative and participatory heritage education, which highlights its history and projects its legacy to future generations. In addition to historical facts, students will learn anecdotes about daily life in the city since the 16th century and learn to identify architectural and urban elements.

The tour begins at the plaque reproducing Torriani’s map in the Plaza de la Junta Suprema, which marks the nearby location of the lagoon that gave the city its name, while the walk through the successive buildings and streets towards the Villa de Abajo will teach the children about the founding of the city, the importance of religious orders in the founding process, the first educational centres in La Laguna and the Canary Islands, and the origins of many street names and their relationship with the city’s supplies in the past.

History of a “hidden” crypt

But it will also be an opportunity to learn about the history of the burial crypt “hidden” by a member of the Salazar family and found during the restoration of the former Augustinian convent, or that of the Plague of Landres, which ravaged La Laguna at the end of the 16th century and its relationship with what is still known today as the “Los Molinos neighbourhood”, the founding of the church of San Juan and, over time, the city’s first civil cemetery.

In addition to the history of the Italian pulpit donated by a neighbour to the now defunct church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (today the Cathedral) and the importance of the temple in attracting population to the Villa de Abajo.

The activity is supported by the Cultural Heritage Department and is part of a broader programme aimed at strengthening the link between citizens and their heritage.