ASCUNSION
Asunción, Paraguay's lively capital, is a city that boasts traditional colonial life versus modern shops and bars. Downtown El Centro has maintained its historic and cosy feel from the 19th-century - tiny cobbled streets lined with orange trees overlooked by precarious low-hanging balconies. Fortunately, it is now safe to look and photograph the Palacio de Gobierno - during El Supremo's Rodríguez de Francia's rule anyone caught gazing at the palace was ordered to be shot on the spot. Not far from here is the Casa Viola, one of the few surviving authentic colonial buildings, now a museum. Asunción also has beautiful gardens, namely the Jardín Botánico.
LAGO YPACARAI
Lago Ypacaraí, home to the lakeside resorts of Areguá and San Bernadino, is only a short distance from Asunción. The lake is visited by locals and visitors alike, and is perfect for swimming, watersports and generally just drinking in the beautiful surroundings.
THE CHACO
In the northeast of Paraguay there is a remarkable area of almost empty plains and forests called the Chaco. It is here that Paraguay shares borders with Argentina, Brazil and the impressive Iguazu falls - a series of more than 200 separate waterfalls strung along 230-foot-high cliffs on both sides of a narrow gorge.