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Budapest's stupendous Parliament building ( Orszaghaz ) sprawls for 268m along the embankment, a grander version of the Houses of Parliament in London in an Eclectic or neo-Gothic style, scornfully described by the writer Gyula Illyes as "No more than a Turkish bath crossed with a Gothic chapel". Scores of flying buttresses and 88 statues of Hungarian rulers lift one's eyes towards the 96-metre-high cupola that straddles its symmetrical wings; the height of the dome is an allusion to the date of the Magyar conquest of Hungary. Although the nobility had maintained a Diet for centuries, which became a force for change during the Reform Era, it had no permanent home until work began on the building in 1885, and had grown sluggish by the time its grandiose seat was completed in 1902. Under Fascism, opposition MPs learned to fear for their lives, while after the Communists took over debates became a mere echo of decisions taken at Party headquarters on Akademia utca, till Parliament began to recover its authority in the late 1980s. Daily guided tours (1500Ft; Budapest Card not valid) start from the forecourt, where guards will usually let you through to buy tickets from Gate X from 8am onwards (you can't prebook). Always ask if tours are taking place as scheduled (10am & 2pm in English), as they may change at short notice. Besides the magnificent interior, visitors get to see St Stephen's Crown , the symbol of Hungarian statehood for over 1000 years. Its distinctive bent cross was caused by the crown being squashed as it was smuggled out of a palace in a baby's cradle; at other times it has been hidden in a hay-cart or buried in Transylvania, abducted to Germany by Hungarian Fascists and thence taken to the US, where it reposed in Fort Knox until its return home in 1978, together with the orb, sceptre and sword that comprise the Coronation Regalia . Since 2000 - when the regalia was moved from the National Museum to the Cupola Hall of parliament - it has been flanked by guards in Ruritanian uniforms, holding drawn sabres. Across the road at no. 12 stands a neo-Renaissance pile housing the Museum of Ethnography ( Neprajzi Muzeum ; Tues-Sun: March-Oct 10am-6pm; Nov-Feb 10am-5pm; 500Ft), one of the finest museums in Budapest. Its permanent exhibition on Hungarian folk culture is fully captioned in English and thematically arranged, and although such beautiful costumes and objects are no longer part of everyday life in Hungary, you can still see them in regions of Romania such as Maramures¸ and the Kalotaszeg, which belonged to Hungary before 1920. Upstairs, temporary exhibitions can cover anything from Bedouin life to Hindu rituals, while over Easter and Christmas the museum puts on concerts of Hungarian folk music and dancing, and craft fairs .
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