Parliament

View of the "back" of the building

As I mentioned in the previous post about our boat ride, the Hungarian Parliament Building is an icon along the banks of the Danube.  Guided tours are given in multiple languages, but knowing our time in the city was limited, I booked ahead online for the first English tour of the day at 9:45am.  If I hadn't, it would have been late afternoon before another English tour was available because the others were sold out.

The Grand Staircase

We took Tram #2 that runs along the Pest side of the river from the hotel all the way to Parliament.  Brief Aside: Public Transit in Budapest is outstanding,  We bought a 72 hour pass that allows you travel on all of the subway (Metro) lines, the buses, and the electric trams.  Public transit runs everywhere in the center city on both sides of the river and we've used all of the various forms to navigate the city.

Parliament Chambers

The interior of the Parliament Building seems to be in a world of its own.  Gilded with gold leaf everywhere, the interior architecture is just as impressive as the exterior.  The building was designed by Imre Steindl, a native of Pest who won an international competition to design the building.  Construction began in 1885, but wasn't completed until 1902.  Unfortunately, Steindl died six months before completion of the building.

Showing the main entrance steps.  The front facade
faces the Danube River.

Our tour took us through the main sections of the building, where we saw the grand staircase that has 96 steps -- in recognition of the Millennium celebration in 1896.  The room under the rotunda features the Crown Jewels of Hungary and statues of famous Hungarians throughout the country's history.  As our guide pointed out, everything on the interior is real gold leaf -- as long as it's higher than three meters (where people can't reach).  The lower areas of gold are actually painted.  The tour only lasted 45 minutes, but it was well worth our time.  I can't imagine having visited Budapest without doing so.  It's one of the most elegant public buildings we've seen.