Jardín Botánico y Zoológico
Besides plenty of plants and a small zoo, you'll find a fine example of a country house, once the home of President Francisco Solano López. It's now a museum with exhibits on Paraguayan wildlife, ethnology, and history.
4 Best Sights in Asunción, Paraguay
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The city is built on a rise overlooking a large bay formed by the Río Paraguay. The centro (downtown) runs south–southeast from the bay for about 10 blocks to Teniente Fariña, and it stretches 17 blocks from Colón in the west to Estados Unidos in the east. Most hotels, restaurants, shops, and offices can be found in this rectangle, easily explored in a day. Except for the irregular shoreline along the river, Asunción's streets follow a standard grid. Downtown streets are narrow and generally have one-way traffic. Two major squares—Plaza de los Héroes and Plaza Uruguaya—provide cool resting places in the shade of jacaranda trees. You'll appreciate these during the unbearably hot October–March months. Addresses are frequently expressed in terms of intersections. If the location is close to an intersection, the address may be expressed as "Alberdi casi Estrella" (Alberdi "almost at" Estrella).
Manzana de la Rivera
In a model for urban planners everywhere, the city of Asunción combined this manzana (block) of nine historic houses near the river into a pleasing cultural center. The oldest of these, the 1764 Casa Viola, the name by which many Asunceños refer to as the "complex," serves as a small city museum called the Museo Memoria de la Ciudad. The Casa Emasa, once a customs office, now houses La Galería, the center's art gallery. The 1914 art nouveau Casa Clari, the newest house, is the complex's café.
Museo de Bellas Artes
The region's artistic legacy is displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts, which has a collection of paintings and sculpture by Paraguayan and other South American artists. Some of the country's most important documents are found in the museum's archive, but the records are geared toward scholarly research rather than tourist perusal.
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Museo del Barro
Though billed as a modern art museum, the so-called "Museum of Clay" includes colonial and indigenous art, but is actually better known for its collection of pre-colonial Guaraní ceramics.
