Royal Castle in Warsaw

The Royal Castle on Plac Zamkowy marks the entrance to Warsaw's Old Town and was, from the 16th century, the seat of Poland's kings and parliament. Growing out of a medieval fortress of the dukes of Mazovia, it was reshaped into today's Baroque four-wing complex with its distinctive clock tower under Sigismund III Vasa, who moved the capital from Krakow in 1598. The Polish Constitution was passed here in 1791, the second written constitution in the world after the American one. In September 1939 the castle was set ablaze; in 1944 the Wehrmacht blew up what remained. Reconstruction from 1971 to 1984 was financed almost entirely by donations from Polish citizens and the diaspora - a deliberate statement of holding on to a city the occupiers had erased. The castle is now a museum: state rooms, the Senators' Hall, and two Rembrandt paintings from the Lanckoronski Foundation. It has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Old Town since 1980.