The country’s heaviest bell

The square was not always holy ground. In the late 18th century this spot hosted the Hecc theatre, where animal fights entertained the crowds. Later a modest wooden church dedicated to St Leopold, Austria's patron saint, stood here.

The great new church was first planned in Leopold's honour too, and only in 1896, Hungary's millennium year, was it renamed after Stephen, the country's founding king.

On 22 January 1868, at ten past three in the afternoon, the half-built dome collapsed. The pillars looked solid but had been filled with rubble, and cracks and strange sounds from the walls had been reported for weeks. The streets had been closed the day before, so nobody was hurt, but the ruins inside reportedly piled up four metres high.

Miklós Ybl redesigned the building, and after his death József Kauser finished it. The church was consecrated in 1905.

The dome reaches 96 metres, exactly the height of the Parliament's. It is usually read as a statement that church and state stand as equals, with neither looking down on the other, and 96 recalls 896, the traditional year of the Magyar conquest.

For a century the two domes defined the skyline. Only in 2022 did a new office tower, the 143-metre MOL Campus, rise higher.

The basilica keeps the Holy Right, venerated as the right hand of King Stephen. Legend says it was secretly taken from his tomb by its guardian, a monk, and only found again later. In 1771 Maria Theresa had it brought back to Hungary from Ragusa, today's Dubrovnik.

In 1944 the Crown Guard hid it with the coronation regalia in a cave near Salzburg. The American army returned it on 19 August 1945, just in time for the procession on 20 August, St Stephen's Day, which still carries it through the streets every year.

Listen for the great bell. At over nine tonnes it is the heaviest in Hungary, and it was a gift. After 1989, a German Catholic weekly collected the money in thanks for Hungary opening its border to East Germans, the move that helped bring down the Berlin Wall. The bell was cast in Passau and blessed on 20 August 1990.

The crypt holds an unexpected grave. Ferenc Puskás, captain of the 1950s 'Golden Team' and later a Real Madrid star, was laid to rest here on 9 December 2006 after a state funeral.

Much of what looks painted inside the dome is actually mosaic, assembled from Venetian glass. Then take the 364 steps, or the lifts and a short last stair, to the panorama terrace around the dome. At about 65 metres it is the highest viewpoint in Pest, level with the rooftops and looking straight across to the Parliament.