Warsaw has been the capital since 1596 and is the European city most thoroughly destroyed in the twentieth century. After the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 the Germans systematically dynamited what remained; some 85 percent of the buildings on the left bank were destroyed.
The reconstruction
The old town was rebuilt between 1949 and 1963 from pre-war plans, photographs and the eighteenth-century vedute of Bernardo Bellotto, whose paintings recorded facade detail with an accuracy nobody had intended for that purpose. UNESCO listed the ensemble in 1980 precisely as a testament to reconstruction. The Royal Castle came later, from 1971, funded by public subscription.
Museums
The Warsaw Rising Museum tells the story of 63 days of fighting in a dense, loud narrative and is the most visited museum in the city. POLIN, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, stands on the site of the ghetto and covers a thousand years of presence rather than only its end; it is one of the best narrative museums in Europe. Add the National Museum, Zachęta and the new Museum of Modern Art on Plac Defilad.
The Palace of Culture
Stalin's gift of 1955, 237 metres tall, for decades the tallest building in Poland and the subject of an unending argument about whether it should stand. The viewing terrace on the thirtieth floor gives the best view of the city, partly because it is the only place from which the Palace itself is not visible.
Parks and palaces
Łazienki Królewskie covers eighty hectares with the Palace on the Isle, an amphitheatre and the Chopin monument, where open-air recitals are played on summer Sundays. Wilanów, the baroque residence of Jan III Sobieski, survived the war and has gardens and collections. Powązki cemetery, laid out in 1790, is a chapter of its own.
The river
The right bank of the Vistula is largely wild and protected under Natura 2000, which is unusual for the capital of a large country. The left-bank boulevards were rebuilt after 2015 and are where the city meets in summer. Praga on the right bank survived the war and has the pre-war tenements the left bank lost.
Practicalities
Two metro lines, a dense tram network and a train from Chopin airport to the centre in twenty minutes. The city is large and spread out, so plan by district.