Warsaw, the old town rebuilt from paintings

Warsaw's Old Town looks, at first sight, like any handsome old town in central Europe: a market square of tall, painted merchants' houses, narrow streets running off it, a barbican on the old walls, the royal castle at the end of the street. It takes a moment to notice that it is all a little too crisp. The plaster is too even, the stone too sharp at the edges. Then you learn why. Almost everything you are looking at was built after 1945, by a city that had decided, against all reason, to put itself back as it had been.

The destruction

In the summer of 1944, with the Red Army approaching from the east, the Polish Home Army rose against the German occupation of Warsaw. The Warsaw Uprising began on 1 August and lasted 63 days, until the insurgents surrendered on 2 October. It was fought street by street, and much of it was fought in the Old Town.

Hitler's response was not only to crush the rising but to destroy the city. He gave the order that Warsaw was to be razed to the ground, and after the surrender, with the surviving population driven out, German units went through the city burning and blowing up what was left, building by building. By the end of the war most of the Old Town lay in ruins.

The rebuilding, and the paintings

After the war, the city had to decide what to do with the ruins. The decision was to rebuild the Old Town, and to rebuild it as it had been. That was a statement as much as a plan: the city had been destroyed deliberately, as an act against the nation, and putting it back was an act of defiance.

The rebuilders worked from every record they could find: architectural drawings, old photographs, surveys, and the memories of the people who had lived there. But one source has become famous above the others. In the eighteenth century the Venetian painter Bernardo Bellotto, who worked under the name Canaletto, was court painter to Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last King of Poland. For the king he painted a series of views of Warsaw: its streets, squares, churches and palaces, in the cool, clear, exact style he had learned in Venice, down to the windows, the chimneys and the figures in the street.

Those paintings became one of the guides for the rebuilding. Where the drawings and photographs ran out, Bellotto's careful views of façades and street scenes helped to show what had been there. It is worth adding that the rebuilt town does not follow the paintings exactly; Bellotto was a painter, not a surveyor, and the post-war architects made their own choices. But the idea of a city rebuilt from its own portraits has a hold on the imagination, and it is not far from the truth.

In 1980 the historic centre of Warsaw became a World Heritage Site, and it is described as the first reconstruction to be inscribed on the list: honoured not for having survived, but for having been brought back.

The Royal Castle and the Canaletto Room

The last great piece to be rebuilt was the Royal Castle, the residence of the Polish kings, which stands at the end of the Old Town by the castle square. It had been destroyed too, and for many years after the war its site stood empty. The decision to rebuild it was taken in 1971, and it was put back using surviving fragments, historical records and works of art that had been rescued during the war. It opened to the public in 1984.

Inside it today is the Canaletto Room, where Bellotto's paintings of Warsaw hang. They were moved there from the National Museum in 1980, and there is something very satisfying about seeing them now in the castle, a few minutes' walk from the streets they helped to rebuild. You can stand in front of a view of a street and then go out and walk down it.

Tours that include Warsaw

All three tours here list Warsaw among their places.

Explore Worldwide's seven-night Highlights of Poland runs from March to September, with Warsaw, Wrocław, Książ Castle, Kraków, Wieliczka, the Kazimierz district, Gdańsk and Sopot among its places.

Explore Worldwide's eleven-night Upgraded - The Baltic States and Poland runs from May to September, with Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, the Hill of Crosses, the Wolf's Lair, the Polish Lake District, Warsaw, Kraków and Kazimierz among its places.

Travelsphere's nine-night Grand Baltic Explorer takes in Helsinki, Tallinn, Sigulda, Riga, Rundāle Palace, Vilnius, Grūtas Park and Warsaw.

With a few hours in Warsaw, I would see the Old Town first, then the Canaletto Room, and then go back out to the market square and look at it again. It will look different the second time.