Asunción runs on small money: most museums charge nothing, a full mercado lunch lands under 25.000 guaraníes and city buses cost 3.400. Three days here cover riverfront barrios, chipa stalls and two hilltop viewpoints for less than a single Buenos Aires dinner.
The marble mausoleum at Palma and Chile holds Carlos Antonio López and the child soldiers of Acosta Ñu. Entry is free, open Tuesday to Sunday 07:00–17:30, and two honour guards in white change position on the hour.
Chile 1072, inside a former Stroessner-era detention house. Original cells, prisoner files and the Archivo del Terror context are laid out room by room. Weekdays 08:00–16:00, no ticket price, donation box by the door.
A hillside barrio above the bay repainted in mango, turquoise and lilac, with stairways, murals and neighbourhood patios open to walkers. Costs nothing to wander; small doorway kitchens sell mbeju for around 8.000 guaraníes.
Three kilometres of free riverfront promenade along the Río Paraguay, with a beach strip, exercise stations and a flagpole plaza. Locals arrive from 17:00 with tereré thermoses; sunset over the Chaco bank is the whole point.
Twenty blocks of stalls around Pettirossi and Perú selling herbs for tereré, Korean noodles, contraband electronics and butchered meat. The food aisles serve bori bori soup and milanesa plates from 20.000 guaraníes.
A Paraguayan counter chain baking chipa, chipa guasu and mbeju in tatakua-style ovens through the day. A hot chipa costs about 5.000 guaraníes, a chipa so'o filled with beef around 10.000, coffee included for little more.
Grabadores del Cabichuí holds Paraguay's best collection of indigenous ceramics, Franciscan santos and political art, built by artists rather than the state. Entry is free with a donation box; open Wednesday to Saturday afternoons.
The Asunceno ice-cream institution, scooping dulce de leche granizado and mamón since the 1980s. A cone runs about 15.000 guaraníes, a half-kilo tub around 45.000, and the terrace fills with families after 19:00.
A 110-hectare park on the old López family estate along Avenida Artigas, with palm avenues, a butterfly house and the Museo de Historia Natural. Entry is roughly 15.000 guaraníes, open daily from 07:00 to 17:00.
A free 120-hectare green space between Asunción and Luque with running loops, lagoons and rented bikes at about 20.000 guaraníes an hour. Weekend food trucks sell asadito sandwiches; weekdays it is almost empty.
South America's first railway terminus, opened 1861, with the wood-burning locomotive Sapucai still on its original rails under the iron shed. Tickets cost around 15.000 guaraníes; open weekdays 07:00 to 17:00.
The 130-metre hill south of the city, named for the cacique who fought the first Spanish arrivals, gives the widest free view over Asunción, the river bend and the Chaco. A paved road climbs to the mirador and statue.