Cities · Misiones · The Jesuit Missions and the South

Santa María

Fifteen kilometers from San Ignacio, Santa María de Fe keeps the scale of a reduction (Jesuit mission town): a large tree-lined plaza surrounded by the old Guaraní residences with their galleries. In one of them, the Diocesan Museum of Jesuit Art displays dozens of Baroque images — saints, nativity scenes and scenes of the Passion — across six rooms. Local women artisans embroider and weave tapestries depicting local scenes, and a family of carayá (black-and-gold howler monkeys) lives in the plaza's trees. A place to slow down.