Santa María la Mayor

Santa María la Mayor lies in the rolling red-earth country of southern Misiones, far from the RN12 corridor where most mission visitors travel, and it is the least visited of the Argentine sites on the UNESCO list. Founded in the 1620s and moved here later, it kept an unusual amount of its working buildings: alongside the church and plaza stand the remains of a large workshop range where Guaraní craftsmen produced printed books, one of the earliest presses in the region, along with instruments and metalwork. The stonework is deep red, the setting is open pasture edged with forest, and the silence is broken mainly by birds. A small interpretation area explains the site.

What you actually see

• The workshop range - remains of the buildings where printing and crafts were done.
• The church and plaza - the outline and standing walls of the mission core.
• The red stonework - local sandstone blocks and carved fragments.
• The rural setting - pasture and forest with almost no other visitors.

When to go

April to October for the most comfortable conditions; summer is hot, humid and stormy. The site is open through the day and rarely busy at any time. Combining it with the Uruguayan and Paraguayan missions across the borders makes a longer route.

Honest expectations

This is a remote site reached on provincial roads, and it needs a car. What survives is foundations and partial walls rather than standing architecture. Interpretation is limited and mostly in Spanish.

Nearby

Concepción de la Sierra is the nearest town; the Paraguayan and Uruguayan mission routes lie across the rivers.