Yaguarón, Itauguá Ñandutí and the Golden Circuit Day Trip from Asunción

Heading southeast from Asunción along Ruta PY02 and Ruta PY01 traces the historic Circuito de Oro (Golden Circuit), a loop of early Franciscan reduction towns and artisan villages across the Central and Paraguarí departments. Within a single day trip, you can watch weavers stitch Paraguay's iconic ñandutí lace in Itauguá and stand inside the finest eighteenth-century Franciscan-Guaraní baroque temple in South America at Yaguarón.

Itauguá: The Capital of Ñandutí ("White Spiderweb Lace")

Located 30 kilometres east of Asunción along Ruta PY02, Itauguá was founded on 27 June 1728 by Governor Martín de Barúa and preserves continuous rows of nineteenth-century single-storey colonial and republican houses with shaded wooden colonnades along Calle Defensores del Chaco. Across Paraguay, the town is synonymous with ñandutí, a Guaraní word meaning "white spiderweb".

Adapted by Paraguayan women from Canary Islands Tenerife sun lace (soles de Tenerife), ñandutí is embroidered by hand with needle and fine cotton or silk thread on fabric stretched over a wooden frame before the backing cloth is cut away. Each circular motif depicts native flora such as the mburucuyá blossom or maize flowers. Watch weavers along the arcaded main street before continuing south to Yaguarón.

Iglesia de San Buenaventura de Yaguarón (1755 to 1772): Franciscan-Guaraní Baroque

Forty-eight kilometres southeast of Asunción along Ruta PY01 stands Yaguarón, founded in 1539 by Governor Domingo Martínez de Irala and Franciscan friars Luis de Bolaños and Alonso de San Buenaventura as one of the earliest Indigenous Guaraní reductions in the Río de la Plata basin. At the centre of a sweeping green lawn rises the Templo de San Buenaventura de Yaguarón, erected between 1755 and 1772 under the artistic direction of Portuguese-born sculptor and architect José de Souza Cavadas.

From the outside, the church appears deliberately austere: a 70-metre-long, low-slung whitewashed adobe building shaded by deep overhanging terracotta-tiled eaves supported by carved lapacho wood pillars, flanked by a separate 25-metre wooden bell tower (campanario). Stepping through the carved wooden doors reveals an astonishing interior: a 14-metre-high gilded polychrome Hispano-Guaraní Baroque high altar (retablo mayor), confessional booths, and a coffered sacristy carved by Guaraní craftsmen from cedar and peterevy wood and painted with natural mineral and plant pigments in rose, sky blue, ochre, and gold leaf. Because Yaguarón operated as a secular Franciscan parish rather than a Jesuit mission, its altar escaped the dispersion that followed the 1767 Jesuit expulsion. Opposite stands the eighteenth-century museum house of Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia; check the official site for hours.

Cerro Yaguarón, Guaraní Mythology, and the 1864 Pirayú Station

Before leaving Yaguarón, drive or walk 1.5 kilometres to the base of Cerro Yaguarón, a 300-metre sandstone hill rising behind the town. A 30-minute trail climbs to the summit viewpoint, passing statues of the seven mythological figures of Guaraní folklore (such as Jasy Jatere and Kurupi) and the footprints attributed to Saint Thomas (Pa'i Sumé). Continue north via the 1864 railway station of Pirayú to Lake Ypacaraí and Areguá before returning to Asunción.