St. Stephen's Basilica

Budapest's largest church, finished in 1905 after fifty-four years of construction and one spectacular setback: the dome collapsed in a storm in 1868 and the whole structure had to be taken down and begun again.

It is 96 metres high, matching the Parliament exactly. That was not a coincidence — the equal height was intended to say that spiritual and worldly power stand level in Hungary, and for decades a city ordinance kept everything else below both.

There are two distinct reasons to go in. The first is the Holy Right: the mummified right hand of Stephen I, the king who converted Hungary to Christianity and died in 1038, kept in a reliquary in a side chapel and lit when a coin is fed to the box. Whatever you make of the relic itself, the queue in front of it is a fair indication of what it still means here.

The second is the dome. A lift takes you most of the way and stairs finish the job, and the walkway around the drum gives a full circle over central Pest — the only major viewpoint in the city that looks at Budapest from the inside rather than across the river at it.

The square outside holds one of the two main Christmas markets.