The Palace of Westminster looks like a Gothic cathedral that got ambitious, sprouting towers, pinnacles and enough statues to populate a small town. This isn't actually medieval at all: when the old palace burned down in 1834, Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin created this Victorian fantasy of what they thought medieval should look like, complete with 1,200 rooms and three miles of passages.

Big Ben, the nickname everyone uses for the clock tower (officially the Elizabeth Tower), chimes the hours while below, democracy unfolds in sometimes theatrical fashion. The palace houses both the House of Commons, with its famous green benches, and the House of Lords, dripping in red leather and gold leaf.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the palace's evolution from royal residence to the mother of parliaments, revealing how Guy Fawkes nearly blew it up, why there are hooks for swords in the cloakroom, and which prime minister kept a coffin in his office.