| If you're planning a trip to Poland this summer, it's likely | | | | remnants from the bombing were blown up. |
| that you'll spend some time in the country's capital of | | | | Reconstructions, however, began to take place in the |
| Warsaw - and for good reason. Warsaw is one of | | | | early 1970s, and in July 1974 the clock on the tower of |
| Eastern Europe's most stunning cities, boasting a | | | | the Royal Castle began working again - on the exact |
| UNESCO World Heritage protected Old Town | | | | same hour at which it had been stopped during the |
| alongside the lavish Palace of Culture and Science, and | | | | Luftwaffe bombardment. Today, Royal Castle is |
| a variety of monuments to Poland's turbulent past. | | | | primarily used for ceremonial purposes and as a |
| However, one attraction stands out most in Warsaw - | | | | branch of Poland's National Museum. What's more, |
| the grand Royal Castle. | | | | many of the castle's original works of art are still |
| Dating back to the thirteenth century, Warsaw's Royal | | | | available to view. This is because, during the Siege of |
| Castle was once the official residence of Poland's | | | | Warsaw in 1939, much of Royal Castle's art collection |
| monarch. It was home to the personal offices of the | | | | was moved to different basements around Warsaw, |
| King, as well as the Royal Court of Poland until the | | | | and thus hidden from German authorities. |
| Partitions of Poland, which ended the sovereign | | | | Visitors to Royal Castle will find that the castle interior |
| Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the eighteenth | | | | consists of many different rooms, all which have been |
| century. During World War II, the Royal Castle was | | | | painstakingly restored with as much original detail as |
| partially destroyed by German bombers in the Invasion | | | | possible left in place. The Jagiellonian rooms - once |
| of Poland and then subsequently suffered further | | | | home to Augustus III - now house a number of |
| damage as a result of German bombardment and | | | | portraits of the Jagiello family, a Lithuanian dynasty that |
| heavy artillery fire during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. | | | | reigned over parts of Central Europe from the |
| In September 1944, on Hitler's orders the Castle | | | | fourteenth to the sixteenth century. |