The Louvre: A Strategy for Not Wasting Your Day

The Louvre holds around 550,000 objects, displays roughly 35,000 of them, and covers 72,735 square metres of exhibition space. If you spent one minute in front of every displayed work, you would need 10 full days. You probably have three hours. Here is how to use them without spending the first 90 minutes in the queue.

Getting In

Book tickets online at ticketlouvre.fr. Timed-entry tickets cost €22 for adults (2025-2026 price). Without a pre-booked slot, the queue at the glass pyramid on a summer day is 90 minutes minimum. The Richelieu Passage entrance from Rue de Rivoli (accessible directly from Palais-Royal - Musée du Louvre metro exit) is faster for ticket-holders.

Free on the first Sunday of each month from October through March, and free for visitors under 18. On free summer Sundays it gets very crowded; arrive at opening (09:00).

The museum is closed on Tuesdays. Open Monday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday 09:00-18:00; Wednesday and Friday 09:00-21:45. The Wednesday and Friday evening sessions are significantly less crowded than daytime. If you are flexible, Friday evening is the best time to visit the Louvre.

Three Routes Through the Collection

Route 1: The Greatest Hits (2 hours)

Denon wing, first floor. The Mona Lisa is in room 711, behind glass, across a red cord, surrounded by people holding phones. It is smaller than most people expect (53 x 77 cm). The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese, directly across from it on the same wall, is 10 metres wide and technically comparable. Most visitors ignore it entirely.

Continue to the Winged Victory of Samothrace at the top of the Daru Staircase – a headless Hellenistic marble figure that is exactly as impressive as advertised – and Venus de Milo in room 346.

Route 2: The Less Photographed, Equally Good (2 hours)

Richelieu wing, second floor: French paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries, far fewer crowds. Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera, Poussin’s studies of antiquity.

Denon wing, ground floor: Greek and Roman antiquities, including the Borghese Gladiator, a late Hellenistic marble that is simply one of the best things in the entire museum. Almost no one goes there because it does not appear in the tourist top-ten lists.

Route 3: For Children or Non-Specialists (1.5 hours)

Egyptian Antiquities in the Sully wing has one of the best Egyptian collections outside Cairo. The everyday life section – domestic objects, writing tools, furniture – is more engaging for children than the mummies, which are smaller and less dramatic than cinema suggests.

The Building

The Louvre was a fortress (12th century), then a royal palace, then France’s first state museum (1793). The medieval foundations are visible in the Sully wing basement: the moat and towers of Philip II’s 12th-century fortress, included in general admission. The glass pyramid by I.M. Pei opened in 1989, was massively controversial at the time, and is now generally considered successful. It serves as a natural light source for the underground hall below.

Near the Museum

Jardin des Tuileries runs east from the Louvre toward Place de la Concorde: 63 acres of formal garden, free to walk through, with the best views of the Louvre’s Denon wing facade from the eastern terrace.

Palais-Royal, 200 metres north, has free gardens with arcades of specialist shops (vintage coins, stamps, antiques) and the Buren striped columns in the central courtyard. Good for coffee from the adjacent cafes.

Musée d’Orsay, 1.5km southwest, has the Impressionist collection the Louvre lacks, housed in a converted Beaux-Arts railway station. If you are in Paris for more than two days, both museums need their own afternoon.

Eating

Avoid the Louvre’s own restaurant. For food near the museum: Angelina at 226 Rue de Rivoli has served the same thick hot chocolate recipe since 1903 (around €9 a cup). Juveniles at 47 Rue de Richelieu is a wine bar doing a short lunch menu with good cheese and charcuterie, unpretentious, local crowd.