The Louvre Museum with a Booked Time

What it is

The Louvre was the palace of the kings of France before it was a museum. It holds the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo, but also entire galleries of Egyptian, Greek and Near Eastern antiquities, six centuries of European painting and the medieval Louvre, with the foundations of the original fortress. You can't see it in a day and don't need to: pick two or three parts and leave before you reach saturation.

How to organise the visit

The museum has three wings, joined under the Pyramid:

• Denon: Italian painting, with the Mona Lisa, the great French canvases (Liberty Leading the People, The Raft of the Medusa), Spanish painting and, on the Daru staircase, the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Also the Galerie d'Apollon.
• Sully: Egyptian antiquities, the Greek section with the Venus de Milo and the medieval Louvre in the basement, beside the moats of Philippe Auguste's fortress.
• Richelieu: Mesopotamia, French sculpture in the covered courtyards and northern European painting.

A good first visit of three to four hours: medieval Louvre, Egyptian antiquities, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, Galerie d'Apollon and the Denon painting with the Mona Lisa, which is always crowded. Before going, check the room-opening plan on the museum's website: several rooms are closed for works. In November 2026, among others, the Islamic art rooms, the Roman antiquities, the Napoleon III apartments and the Médicis gallery.

Hours

• Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday: 9:00 to 18:00.
• Wednesday and Friday: 9:00 to 21:00.
• Tuesday: closed.

Last entry is one hour before closing and the rooms begin to be cleared half an hour before. It also closes on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.

Tickets and prices

• Residents or citizens of the European Economic Area (Spain included): €22.
• Visitors from outside the EEA: €32.
• Free: under-18s of any nationality, young people aged 18 to 25 who are residents or citizens of the EEA (with ID card or passport), people with disabilities and one companion, and unemployed people from the EEA with proof.

The ticket includes the permanent collections, the temporary exhibitions and the Musée Eugène-Delacroix on the same day or the next. The museum recommends booking a time slot on its website even if you enter free; ticket-office sales exist only if there are few visitors. The Louvre warns about fraud: do not buy from street sellers or from websites that imitate its own.

Where to enter

• Pyramid: the main entrance, with separate queues for those with a ticket and those without. The Pyramid lift is for people with reduced mobility and pushchairs.
• Carrousel (99 rue de Rivoli): open to those who already have a ticket, groups and members.
• Porte des Lions (quai François-Mitterrand): ticket holders only, closes at 18:00 and on Tuesdays.

Getting there

By metro, lines 1 and 7 to Palais-Royal – Musée du Louvre, or line 14 to Pyramides. By car, the Carrousel car park has its entrance at 1 avenue du Général-Lemonnier, although in Paris the practical option is the metro ticket. There are security checks at the entrance.

With children

They enter free. The museum has a section for families on its website, and the Pyramid lift is reserved, among others, for pushchairs. With children, shorter visits are better: Egyptian mummies and sarcophagi, the moats of the medieval Louvre and the Winged Victory of Samothrace work better than the painting galleries. On leaving, the Tuileries garden, free, opens from 7:00 to 19:30 in winter and until 23:00 in summer.