Trinidad Jesuit Ruins

La Santísima Trinidad del Paraná is the best preserved Jesuit mission in Paraguay and a UNESCO World Heritage Site together with nearby Jesús de Tavarangüé. Founded in 1706, it was a self-governing Guaraní town of several thousand people with a workshop economy, its own orchestra and a printing press, until the order was expelled in 1767 and the settlements emptied. The red sandstone church still carries a carved frieze of angels playing instruments. Jesús was left unfinished when the expulsion came and its walls stop mid-construction. Both sites are seen in one afternoon and lie ten kilometres apart.