Warsaw Audio Tours

In August 1944 the Warsaw Uprising began, and when it was crushed after sixty-three days, Hitler ordered the city razed. The remaining population was expelled and German engineers went street by street, building by building, until approximately 85 percent of Warsaw was rubble. What stands in the Old Town today, the coloured burgher houses, the Royal Castle, the medieval walls, the market square where Chopin concerts still play on summer weekends, was rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s using 18th-century paintings by Bernardo Bellotto as the architectural blueprints. UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list in 1980 as an outstanding example of near-total historical reconstruction, which is a category of recognition that only exists because of what happened here.

The Palace of Culture and Science, 237 metres of Soviet wedding-cake architecture on the centre of Defilad Square, was a gift from Stalin to the Polish people in 1955 and remains the tallest building in Poland.

Varsovians have never quite decided how to feel about it. The terrace on the 30th floor gives the best panoramic view of the city, which is currently one of the most dramatic skylines in Central Europe, with glass towers around Rondo Daszynskiego rising to challenge the Palace's symbolic dominance. The Vistula riverfront, particularly the Powisle neighbourhood, has developed into the city's liveliest outdoor space over the past decade, with beach bars and music events from May to September.