Poland

A country that was erased from the map of Europe for over a century and rebuilt itself, sometimes stone by stone, and whose old cities carry that whole story in their streets. Walk Krakow, the royal capital that the war never flattened, from the largest medieval market square in Europe to the coronation hill of Wawel and the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz. Read Warsaw, whose historic centre was destroyed almost to nothing and then painstakingly raised again, from the rebuilt Old Town along the grand Royal Route to the king's garden at Lazienki. And Gdansk, the great Baltic port of amber and merchants where, in a shipyard, a strike helped bring down communism across a continent. Extraordinary and often moving heritage, all of it better taken slowly, at your own pace, on your own schedule.