St. Stephen's Basilica took 54 years to build, which sounds like bureaucratic dawdling until you learn the dome collapsed halfway through, forcing architects to start over. The finished church, Budapest's largest, now shares an intentional distinction with Parliament: both stand exactly 96 metres tall, a nod to 896 AD, when Magyar tribes first settled the Carpathian Basin.

Inside, the main attraction isn't the gilt mosaics or the organ with its 5,898 pipes. It's a jewelled reliquary containing the mummified right hand of King Stephen himself, Hungary's first Christian monarch, paraded through the streets each August on his feast day.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the basilica's troubled construction and explain how this neoclassical landmark anchors the elegant grid of inner Pest, connecting Habsburg-era grandeur to the ruin bars and thermal baths nearby.