Asuncion and the heartland: Walking tour of Asuncion

Walking tour of Asuncion

Asuncion’s historic core is small and compact so you’ll be able to see all the main sights on an enlightening walking tour.  Around the four central plazas a grid of lively, workaday streets reveals a clutch of historic landmarks which tell the eventful story of Paraguay's colonial past, as well as more recent, occasionally turbulent times.

Highlights are the old railway station, frozen in time since the late 1800s when British-built steam trains connected Asunción with the interior; the stately Panteón, where past heroes are interred; and the Casa de la Independencia, a modest colonial house where freedom from Spain was plotted.

Perched high above the Paraguay river, a sleepy tree-lined plaza links the strikingly simple white Cathedral with the beautiful rose-hued Cabildo, former seat of government. Elsewhere there are emblems of Paraguay's troubled political history: you’ll see The base of a destroyed statue of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner while in front of the Cabildo is a memorial to the events of the 1999 Marzo Paraguayo.