I visited the Louvre Museum on an Easter Saturday, and as with all European holidays, the queue was huge. It is impossible to visit Paris without including the Louvre in your itinerary, where visitors from all over the world come to see the painting of the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Victory of Samothrace, Greek, Egyptian and Roman antiquities, among the more than 2,500 works of art that are exhibited there. However, there is a large collection in the Louvre, enough to keep any traveller inside the museum for days. For this reason, in this article, I explain the minimum you need to know to plan your visit to the Louvre during your stay.
How long to visit the Louvre Museum?
I recommend setting aside at least one full day to visit the Louvre Museum, due to the amount of time in line and the fact that the museum is huge. Visiting for one day is enough for those who just want to see the Mona Lisa painting and some other works of art on display in the museum. However, if you want to explore the Louvre at a leisurely pace and appreciate a greater number of works, it is worth considering planning more than 1 day of visits or taking a guided tour focused on the main attractions of the museum.
Having a map of the Louvre is essential to plan your visit and go directly to the parts of the museum that interest you. At the museum entrance, you can pick up a map that is available in 7 languages at the information desk or download it from the website. Make a list of the works of art you want to see and plan your itinerary based on the location of the pieces in the museum. The collections are displayed on 5 levels interconnected by 3 wings: Richelieu, Sully and Denon.
Another option to buy your ticket to the Louvre is to buy a Go City pass for all the attractions you want to visit during your trip to Paris, with options for choosing how many places to visit and unlimited attractions, including the most visited museums like the Louvre.
How to enter the Louvre Museum?
The main entrance to the Louvre Museum is where the Pyramid is located. The queues to enter are divided into 4 sections: visitors without a ticket, visitors with a ticket, visitors with a membership card (Amis du Louvre, Louvre Pro, among other membership programs) and priority entry (employees, visitors with disabilities, among others). At peak times, the entrance queues can be spread out at the entrances named Carrousel, Richelieu and Porte de Lions. If you don’t want to take 2 hours to enter the museum, it is worth buying tickets for a guided tour with skip-the-line entrance or a timed-entrance ticket guaranteed within 30 minutes.
Where is the Louvre Museum located? How to arrive?
The Louvre Museum is located at 75001 Rue de Rivoli, on the right bank of the Seine River. To arrive to the Louvre, you can take the metro, bus, car, taxi and the Batobus River transport.
By Metro
Ⓜ️ Palais-Royal/Musée du Louvre metro stations (lines 1 and 7)
Ⓜ️ Estación Pyramides metro station (line 14)
By bus
🚌 Lines 21, 27, 39, 67, 68, 69, 72, 74, 85, 95.
By taxi
🚖 Get off at the arrivals area at the roundabout called Carrousel, at 75001 Rue de Rivoli, on the right bank of the Seine River. The nearest departure area is Place André Malraux.
By Batobus
🛥️ The Batobus is a boat service that runs along the Seine River. To arrive to the Louvre by Batobus, the stopping point is the station Louvre, Quai François-Mitterrand.
Louvre Museum opening hours
The Louvre Museum is open every day except Tuesdays and certain holidays. Entry is allowed up to 1 hour before closing time and visitors are advised to leave the museum 30 minutes before closing time.
⏰ Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday: from 9:00h to 18:00h
⏰ Friday: from 9:00h to 21:45h
⏰ Tuesday: closed
The best time to take photos at the Louvre Museum
During your visit to the Louvre Museum, do not expect a free space around the Pyramid, such as the number of visitors and the length of the entrance queue. For those planning to visit Paris in the summer, between June and August, the best time to take pictures of the iconic Pyramid at the Louvre entrance is after 9:00 PM. As the sun in the northern hemisphere sets later in the summer, this time around 9 pm is the time when tourists leave the museum, so there are more spaces to take pictures of the Pyramid. And it still has some sunlight that allows you to explore the angles of the pyramid for amazing photos.
Originally posted 2023-04-17 02:02:57.
