Zamek Krolewski

Walking through the Royal Castle in Warsaw, you have to constantly remind yourself that most of it was reconstructed between 1971 and 1984, although the darker elements of the décor were actually salvaged from the ruins. The castle, located on a plateau overlooking the Vistula River, was built for the Dukes of Mazovia and expanded when King Zygmunt III Vasa moved the capital to Warsaw. From the early 17th until the late 18th century, this was the seat of the Polish kings. It subsequently housed the parliament and is now a museum displaying tapestries, period furniture, coffin portraits and collections of porcelain and other decorative arts. The castle gardens, which were also badly scarred by the Nazis during WWII, have recently been redesigned and returned to their former glory.