Warsaw ("Warszawa" in Polish, pronounced "Var-sha-va") has been the capital of Poland for a relatively short period of time. Kinga says it became the capital sometime in the seventeenth century. Before that, it was Krakow.

In the Second World War, Warsaw was literally flattened. It's been rebuilt, but the "influence" of the Soviets remains — ugly, Stalinist architecture realized in concrete.

It's not a city I visit often.