Hungarian Parliament Building

The third largest parliament building in the world, finished in 1902, and built to a scale that says everything about what Budapest expected of the twentieth century.

It is 268 metres long, has 691 rooms and roughly twenty kilometres of staircases. Its dome is exactly 96 metres high — a number that recurs deliberately across the city, marking the Magyar conquest of 896, and matched precisely by St Stephen's Basilica. For a long time no building in Budapest was permitted to exceed it.

Imre Steindl won the competition to design it and went blind before it was completed. The style is Gothic Revival on a Baroque plan, which is a contradiction that works: the silhouette is all spires and pinnacles, the layout underneath is symmetrical and ceremonial.

The interior can only be seen on a guided tour, which covers the grand staircase, the dome hall where the Holy Crown of Hungary is kept under guard, and one debating chamber. Tours sell out days ahead in season — book before you travel rather than on the day. Citizens of EU countries pay a reduced rate and need an ID that shows it.

From outside, it is best seen from the Buda bank, and best of all after dark.