Warsaw

The geographical core and political center of Poland since 1611, Warsaw will doubtless shock the first-time visitor with its bleak postwar architecture. But the history of this city can turn dismay first to amazement and then to deep admiration for the surviving one-third of its inhabitants who so energetically rebuilt their city -- literally from the ashes -- starting in 1945.

Warsaw was in the worst possible location during World War II, and perhaps nowhere else in Europe are there so many reminders of that time: plaques describing massacres of Poles by the Nazis are numerous. (The city's darkest hours came in April 1943, when the inhabitants of the Jewish ghetto rose up in arms against the Nazis and were brutally put down, and in the summer of 1944, when the Warsaw Uprising was ultimately defeated.)

Yet amid the drabness you will find architectural attractions, such as historic Old Town, rebuilt brick by brick after the war according to old prints, photographs, and paintings. Also impressive is the wedding cake-like Palace of Culture and Science, Stalin's early 1950s gift to the city. Warsaw also has lovely churches and monasteries and interesting monuments and museums, and it bustles with activity during the summer -- with theatre, book, jazz, and classical music festivals.