The best museums Paraguay

The old Asunción station now houses a small museum on the history of rail transport in Paraguay. Paraguay was one of the first Latin American countries to build a passenger railroad. It was in the ^mid-19th century, during the great works undertaken by President Carlos Antonio López, and later by his son Francisco Solano López. The station was inaugurated in 1861. A train linked Asunción to Trinidad (today's Botanical Gardens), then to Luque, and later to Areguá (1862) and Paraguari (1864), just before the outbreak of the War of the Triple Alliance. Reopened in the 1880s, the train linked Asunción to Villarica in 1886, then to Encarnación from 1913, with a connection to the Argentine rail system leading to Buenos Aires. The train ran until 1999, then between 2004 and 2009 only for tourist purposes, between Trinidad and Areguá. The tourist train may be back in service in the years to come, but nothing is certain... The museum displays a variety of railway-related objects, including a telegraph. You can climb aboard the country's first steam locomotive, imported from England, and walk through the carriages, still in their original condition. It's a quick but interesting visit, with a modest entrance fee. The station building features two neo-Gothic towers and a gallery overlooking the Uruguaya square. Allow around 20 minutes for the visit.

This museum belongs to the De Holds family, which created it in 1970. A good complement to the museum located near the ruins.

It was here that Pedro Juan Caballero, Francisco Bogarín, Fulgencio Yegros, Fernando de la Mora and Gaspar Rodríquez de Francia held their secret meetings. At dawn on May 15, 1811, the latter went out through the alley(callejón) at the back of the house, to depose the Spanish governor in his mansion, thus marking the independence of Paraguay. The colonial house (adobe walls, palm roof, patio) dates back to 1772. The museum displays valuable colonial furniture, paintings and objects from the period.

The Museum of Sacred Art is housed in a beautiful early ^20th-century house, Villa Lina. It was founded by Nicolás Darío Latourette Bo, a cultural figure who played an important role in the conservation of the Casa de la Independancia. His private collection, on display here, consists of some one hundred religious sculptures from the ^17th and ^18th centuries, created in the Jesuit and Franciscan missions. These Baroque relics, preserved but not restored (the colors are original), are of great historical value.

The National Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1909, exhibits some one hundred works by Paraguayan artists (Juan Samudio, Carlos Colombo, Pablo Alborno...) and foreigners (such as the Frenchman Julio Mornet, or the Italians Héctor Da Ponte and Guillermo Da Ré). Most of the paintings and sculptures come from the personal collection of Paraguayan intellectual Juan Silvano Godoy (1850-1926), a post-war free-thinker who acquired them during his 18 long years in exile.

This pale pink building with arcades is the first major work of the 19th century (1842-1857), launched by Carlos Antonio López. It was built on the site of the old cabildo. "Cabildo" is a colonialterm that refers to the place where the city's affairs, both administrative and judicial, were dealt with. The Cabildo building has never had this function. It was originally the seat of the executive, until 1894, when it was moved to the Palacio de los López. Ten years later, the Cabildo welcomed the legislative power until 2003, when it was transferred to a new modern building located nearby, nicknamed "the flying saucer". Today, the Cabildo is a cultural centre and museum, with several thematic rooms and permanent or temporary exhibitions. His visit allows him to familiarize himself with the country's history, music (with a special section for the famous guitar composer Agustín Pío Barrios "Mangoré"), cinema, folk and indigenous art, sacred art, immigration and foreign communities living in Paraguay. Many cultural events are organised at the Cabildo: conferences, concerts, film screenings... From the back of the building, you can see the Chacarita district, a slum that is regularly flooded. This is in stark contrast to the institutions in the immediate vicinity, including the Presidential Palace and Congress..

This museum is a space for reflection and remembrance, a tribute to the victims of General Stroessner's dictatorship (1954-1989). It was created on the initiative of the Celestina Pérez de Almada Foundation, ten years after the discovery of the "Archives of Terror", in December 1992, in a police station in Lambaré, by judge José Agustín Fernández and lawyer and human rights defender Martín Almada. These archives contain the names of over 400,000 people imprisoned by the secret services of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, as part of Operation Condor set up by the United States. The foundation is named after Martín Almada's wife, who died in 1974 as a result of the psychological torture inflicted by the political police while her husband was in prison. The museum is housed in the building of the former Dirección Nacional de Asuntos Técnicos ("La Técnica"), which concealed a detention center, where for over 30 years thousands of people suspected of being "subversive" or "communist" were tortured... in fact, anyone suspected of having progressive thoughts or behavior. Photographs of the disappeared, cells (9 m² for 10 people) and instruments of torture, each more horrifying than the last, such as the picana, an electric needle, or the pileta, the bathtub in which the victim, bound with barbed wire, was held until asphyxiated... A 40-minute documentary, Informe final, is available on request.

Founded in 1929, the museum is named after the creator of the Paraguayan Red Cross, who worked extensively in indigenous communities throughout the country. The museum boasts Paraguay's largest ethnographic collection, with over 3,000 items from different indigenous populations (funerary urns, kitchen utensils, feather ornaments, clothing, hammocks, weapons, etc.), as well as fine photographs. The museum has a library specializing in anthropology.

This beautiful space was created in 1979 by several artists, principally Carlos Colombino (1937-2013), a renowned visual artist, architect and writer. The permanent and temporary collections express the different visual expressions of Paraguay and Iberian America. If you have to visit only one museum in Paraguay, this is it! The works are rich and varied, and the facilities are quite pleasant. The first collection, that of the Museo del Barro (Clay Museum), is devoted to Paraguayan folk art dating back to the ^17th century. It boasts over 4,000 pieces, ranging from ceramics, wooden sculptures from Jesuit and Franciscan reductions, fabrics, lace (ñandutí) and silverware. It also features pre-Columbian ceramics from all over the continent. The Museo de Arte Indígena (Museum of Indigenous Art) collection showcases the artistic wealth of Paraguay's various indigenous groups. Over 1,750 pieces are on display, including ceramics, sculptures, ceremonial dress, masks, baskets and more. Finally, the collection of the Museo Paraguayo de Arte Contemporáneo (Museum of Contemporary Art) includes over 3,000 paintings, drawings, engravings, installations and sculptures by national artists, as well as those from other Latin American countries and Spain. At the entrance, you'll find a store selling quality handicrafts and a bookshop stocking fine art books.

Right next to the cathedral, this small museum is named after an illustrious archbishop, who had assembled a fine collection of Franciscan and Jesuit sculptures and many sacred art objects. There is also a room dedicated to Paraguayan Independence and the Triple Alliance War. Independence hero Pedro Juan Caballero was imprisoned here under the government of Dr. Francia, after a conspiracy attempt. He committed suicide in his cell in 1821.