🇵🇾 Paraguay
Asuncion
Asunción is the capital of Paraguay and the least-visited capital city in South America — a city of 525,000 (2.3 million metro) that most travellers pass through on the way somewhere else, and thereby miss one of the continent's most authentic urban experiences. The city has no major tourist attractions by conventional standards, but it has the Palacio de los López (a baroque riverside government palace, 1894, occupied by one of South America's longest-running presidential dynasties, the Stroessner family, for 35 years), the Manzana de la Rivera (a city block of 8 colonial houses spanning 200 years of architecture, now a free cultural centre), and the Casa de la Independencia (the house where Paraguay's 1811 independence from Spain was planned). Asunción is notably cheap (€20–30/day is comfortable), the people are warm and unhurried, and the combination of colonial architecture, subtropical heat, and complete absence of tourist industry gives it a genuinely unusual atmosphere. Best months: April–September (cooler and drier).