We have just been to Budapest for a few days and one of the sights we wanted to see was Parliament.

First I will give you an idea of the process to get into the building:
you can only approach one gate, gate 10 (X in Roman numerals), where the ticket office is. The rest of the building (even the outside) is off limits and guarded.

Ensure you go early in the morning (they are open from 8am) to get your tickets for English-speaking tours that day. As you can imagine the English-speaking tour is the most popular tour so they tend to run out of tickets very quickly. Also availability of tours is based on whether parliament is in session. They can cancel tours at the last minute.

There are 3 English-speaking tours a day: at 10am, 12 noon and 2pm. You can only get tickets for THAT DAY so if you are not successful one day, you have to come back the next day. They don't allow you to reserve tickets for tours in advance. The tour itself is about 40 minutes.

Once inside you get to see the entrance hall (used for special guests like royalty and heads of state) and you're led up the stairs. There are 8 solid granite columns along this flight of stairs which were a gift from the government of Sweden. You'll notice there is a lot of gold decoration and pomp, and one of the main claims to fame is that the building is the 3rd largest in the world (after Romania and Argentina).

The royal crown which is centuries old is stored in the centre of the building. You can see it and take photos but not with flash. Then you get to see the chambers of the House of Lords which is no longer in use, but is identical to the House of Commons so shows you what the chambers look like. You'll get a few minutes to take photos here.

An amusing observation: in the corridors outside the chamber there are gold-plated sigar holders with numbers on them; this is where (when they were still allowed to smoke), parliament members used to leave their cigars to go into meetings, and be able to identify which one was theirs when they came out!

All in all a sight worth seeing, if only to say you've been there!