Santa Teresa Basilica
A great space for pilgrimages

Towards the end of the 19^th century, it was clear that Alba de Tormes needed a larger church to receive an ever growing number of pilgrims, who came to visit the place where Saint Teresa lived and died. This was the reason that led Father Cámara, at the time Bishop of Salamanca, to move forward a project for an enormous temple which, for various reasons, remains unfinished to this day. The project was commissioned to Architect Enrique María Repullés y Vargas, and its first stone was laid in the afternoon of the 1^st of May of the same year.

The works were carried out with an uneven rhythm until 1933, when they were interrupted at the base of the domes, due to the troubles suffered by the Spanish Second Republic. Most of what can be seen nowadays was built during that first building stage.

The interruption lasted for decades, until the visit of Pope John Paul II, in 1982, reawakened the idea that Alba de Tormes had to have a large church to receive the pilgrims. With this spirit, new projects were studied towards the end of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st. From the start, it became obvious that, over a hundred years after the initial works, it was impossible to resume the original project as it was. Whatever would be done, would have to take into account the current social and economic circumstances. And precisely these circumstances were what recently led them to make a renewed effort to improve what was already made by providing coverage for the structure so at least part of the space built so far could be used.