The story
The Royal Castle on Warsaw's old square looks centuries old, but almost all of it dates from the 1970s. It had been the seat of Poland's kings and parliament, and in 1944, after the Warsaw Uprising, German troops drilled it with holes, packed them with explosives and blew the building to rubble on Hitler's order.
For decades it stayed a gap in the city. Reconstruction began only in 1971, paid for largely by donations from Poles at home and abroad, and finished in 1984. In rebuilding it, workers leaned on an unexpected source, the detailed 18th-century views of Warsaw painted by Bernardo Bellotto, the king's court painter, which recorded the city's streets and facades so precisely they served as blueprints.
Inside, restored throne rooms and painted ceilings surround the art that was hidden or carried out before the destruction, including two paintings by Rembrandt, a scholar at his desk and a girl in a picture frame, back in the rebuilt rooms.
