Esztergom Basilica

Esztergom was the birthplace and first capital of the Hungarian kingdom, where Saint Stephen was crowned around the year 1000 and Christianity took root. The vast basilica that now crowns the hill above the Danube — Hungary's largest church, 118 metres long and topped by a 100-metre dome — was built between 1822 and 1856 on the site of medieval predecessors destroyed under Ottoman rule. It holds the largest single-canvas altarpiece in the world, a 13-by-6-metre painting of the Assumption, and the exquisite red-marble Bakócz Chapel, a Renaissance jewel that survived the Turks and was reassembled stone by stone inside the new church. The primate of Hungary still has his seat here.