Visiting Parliament

Two years ago I spent a week visiting Budapest as a tourist. Unfortunately, during this short amount of time I did not have a chance to take the tour of Budapest's famous parliament building. Last weekend, I had some time to finally take the tour.

It is not a easy matter to get on one of the guided tours of the building. It is still Hungary's functioning parliament and because of security concerns, finally gaining admittance to the building can involve hours of waiting. I decided to take the tour in Spanish because I did not have to wait quite so long for the next available tour. Even then I walked around the city for about 3 hours until the time that tour was to begin, but the wait was well worth it. Here are a few of the factual highlights:

• When the Hungarian parliament was built over 100 years ago, it was one of the most advanced in the world, featuring electricity, central heating and in the summer months, air conditioning. This was accomplished by blowing air over several tons of ice which had to be brought in every day.
• The parliament is the third largest in the world, after the buildings in Argentina and Romania. Like Romania's Palace of Parliament ( see earlier posts) all the materials used to build it are domestic products.
• The main rotunda houses the crown jewels of Hungary, they are rumored to be 1000 years old and used in the coronation of St. Stephen, Hungary's first king. The Hungarian state apparently will not allow the carbon dating of the crown to confirm this.
• Currently Hungary has a uni-camiral legislature. However at the time of the parliament's construction the country had dominion over Slovakia and Serbia, necessitating two houses of parliament. The quarters of the lower house are still used and are not open to visitors. Those of the upper house feature elaborate brass cigar holders outside the entrance to the chambers. They were numbered so that your cigar could be changed while parliament was in session.
• You can now rent the upper house's chambers for private functions. It costs many thousands of euros per hour.

While the tour was shorter than I expected. I found the building itself to be beautiful, and the tour informative, although a bit comedic. When some Argentinians in the group volunteered in their accent that the largest parliament in the world was in fact in Romania. The guide responded first by joking "Hey, We're speaking Spanish here!" proving a laugh from all present, including the Argentinians.