Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels, Cartago

Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels, Cartago tickets: which one to buy

Entry is free. A small crypt below the basilica holds the rock where the image was found and a spring whose water pilgrims collect in bottles; there is no charge, and bottles are sold outside for a few colones. Cartago is twenty-five kilometres east of San Jose, forty minutes by bus from the capital for a fare of a dollar or two, and the basilica is four blocks from the bus stop.

Tours from San Jose include the basilica with the Irazu volcano and the Orosi valley and cost a moderate amount, which is a sensible way to see the region in a day. Nothing needs booking except around 2 August, when the annual pilgrimage arrives. Bottled water from the spring is sold by vendors outside and the queue at the tap inside moves quickly except on feast days.

Visiting Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels, Cartago: what to see

In 1635 a mixed-race girl called Juana Pereira found a small dark stone statue of the Virgin with the Christ child on a rock outside Cartago; she took it home twice and twice it returned to the rock, which the church read as an instruction. La Negrita, as Costa Ricans call her, became the national patroness, and her shrine was built where the rock stands. Earthquakes destroyed several churches on the site, and the present basilica dates from 1939: a Byzantine revival building with a grey and white striped interior, carved wooden ceilings and stained glass, unlike anything else in Central America.

Thousands of tiny silver ex-votos in the shapes of hearts, limbs, houses and cars fill cases beside the crypt, each a thanksgiving for a prayer answered. The image itself is about eight centimetres tall, carved from dark stone, and sits above the high altar in a gold monstrance far larger than the figure. The interior columns are painted in blue and grey stripes and the ceiling is carved wood, a combination that owes more to Central European revivalism than to Spanish colonial building.

Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels, Cartago opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from early morning to evening, with masses through the day. The Romeria on 2 August is the event of the Costa Rican year: more than a million people walk the twenty-two kilometres from San Jose overnight, many of them the last stretch on their knees, and the city is closed to traffic for days. Cartago sits at 1,435 metres and is cooler and wetter than the coast, with rain likely from May to November.

Dress modestly. Photography is allowed. Allow half an hour. The ruins of the Santiago Apostol parish church, abandoned after the 1910 earthquake and now a public garden, are five minutes away and worth the walk. Cartago is Costa Rica's former capital and its street grid, laid out in 1563, still surrounds the basilica.