Matthias Church

The interior is the most surprising part of the visit. Schulek’s restoration team, with the painters Bertalan Székely and Károly Lotz, covered every available surface with figures and pattern, working the remains of the medieval wall painting into a new scheme, and the coloured windows were made by Ede Kratzmann to their designs.

The result is far closer to a Hungarian fairytale palace than a typical Catholic parish church; some visitors find it overwhelming, others can’t stop photographing.

Look at the pillars first, each one painted differently, then up at the vaults. The keystone where the nave meets the crossing is an eight-petalled rose, the symbol of Mary, to whom the church is dedicated. The altars are Schulek’s too, assembled from Romanesque and Gothic elements.

It is dark inside on a dull day. Give your eyes a minute before you start, and use flash if you want to, because the church allows it in the nave and the chapels.

Schulek threw out the Baroque high altar and designed a new one in the manner of the early Gothic. The figure at its centre is the Virgin, and the crown she wears is a replica of the Holy Crown of Hungary, blessed by John Paul II and carried from Rome to Buda on foot by members of the parish, who crowned the statue with it on 15 August 2000.

To the left of the chancel, in the north side-chancel, Károly Lotz painted scenes from the life of St László, and above that altar is a copy of the king’s head reliquary kept at Győr. The royal oratory, where the coronation parties sat, opens onto the chancel from the same side; you reach it from the museum route upstairs.

This is the photograph everyone takes, so come here first if you arrive at opening time.

The chapels run along the north side of the church, and the second one from the main door holds the grave of King Béla III and his wife Anne of Antioch.

Their remains were found in 1848 among the ruins of the royal basilica at Székesfehérvár, and in 1898, two years after the restored church was consecrated, they were reburied here in a canopied double sarcophagus that Schulek designed and Ferenc Mikula and István Hausen carved.

The chapel before it, the first on the left as you come in, is the St Imre chapel, with an altarpiece of the prince’s life by Mihály Zichy and murals by Székely. The St Stephen chapel further along, Schulek’s own design with Székely’s scenes of the king’s life, is on the museum route.

Take the chapels slowly. The tomb is the one place in the building where the medieval kingdom is present in person rather than in paint.

The church’s ecclesiastical art collection is included in the church ticket and is easy to miss, because the route to it starts with a staircase down.

From the south side-chancel you go into the crypt, where the church keeps original medieval stone fragments and a red marble sarcophagus holding bones from the royal tombs at Székesfehérvár, then climb the north stair to the St Stephen chapel, the royal oratory, the oratory of the Knights of Malta and the north gallery.

The rooms hold vestments, chalices and monstrances, among them robes worn at the 1867 coronation and the coronation chair of Charles IV and Zita, a 15th-century winged altar, and copies of the coronation regalia. From the gallery you get the interior from above, which is the best single view of the painted vaults.

Allow 20 minutes, and put the flash away up here, where it is not allowed.

The bell tower climb is a separate ticket, sold only by the church, for a fixed half-hour slot. Groups are small, and the visit opens with a 10-minute guided introduction before 197 steps of spiral staircase take you up past the bells to the lookout level. The staircase is narrow enough that nobody passes, so everyone goes up and comes down together.

The reward is the view over the diamond-patterned roof tiles at arm’s length, Fisherman’s Bastion and its turrets directly below, and the Danube and the Parliament across the river. It is the closest look you will get at the roof.

Be at the entrance five minutes before the time on your ticket. If stairs are a problem, the free level of Fisherman’s Bastion gives you most of the same panorama from below.

Step out into Szentháromság tér and look up. The roof is laid in glazed Zsolnay tiles in a diamond pattern, and the tall south tower, the Matthias Tower, is a restored copy of the one King Matthias built, topped by a lace-like stone spire that is Schulek’s own invention. The shorter Béla Tower on the north side is Schulek’s too, with a squat four-pinnacled cap in coloured glazed tiles.

Before you go in, look at the porch on the south side. The Mary Gate inside it, with the death of the Virgin carved in its tympanum, is early 15th century and one of the few medieval pieces of the church to survive Schulek.

The coat of arms of King Matthias, with its raven, is what gave the church its everyday name; the repainted original is on the wall inside by the stairs.

Best angles: from the arcades of Fisherman’s Bastion behind the church, and from the south-east corner of the square with the spire against the sky.