The Louvre Museum is one of the world’s largest and most famous museums in Paris, France.
It is housed in the Louvre Palace, a historic fortress and royal residence dating back to the 12th century.
Established in 1793, it has since grown to house a vast collection of art and artifacts spanning various periods and cultures.
More than 30,000 tourists line up to enter the attraction daily, bringing in around 10 million visitors annually from around the world.
Some famous works displayed here include the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, and the Code of Hammurabi.
The collection includes ancient Egyptian artifacts, Greek and Roman sculptures, European paintings, and Islamic art.
This article covers everything you must know before booking Louvre Museum tickets.
Top Tickets
# Louvre Museum Skip-The-Line Ticket
# Guided Tour
# Tour for families with kidsIt’s highly recommended to book your Louvre Museum tickets in advance. These tickets sell out quickly, so securing your spot early ensures you don’t miss out on this unforgettable experience.
What’s ahead
Things to know before booking tickets
Tickets for Louvre Museum can be purchased online or at the venue.
Online tickets are usually cheaper than those sold at the attraction.
When you buy online, you can avoid the long queues at the ticket counters.
When you book early, you also get your preferred time slot
Because some attractions sell a limited number of tickets, they may sell out during peak days. Booking early helps avoid last-minute disappointments.
To book tickets, visit the museum ticket booking page.
Select the number of tickets, preferred date, and time slot, and buy the tickets immediately.
Once you complete the booking process, the tickets will be mailed to you.
There is no need to get printouts of the ticket.
On the day of your visit, walk right past the queue, straight to the guard at the front of the Glass Pyramid entrance.
Look for the sign ‘visitors with tickets,’ which in French should read ‘Avec Billet.’
The guard will check your ticket on your mobile and ask you to present a valid photo ID, without which you won’t be allowed inside.
Why you should book tickets online
Check out this video by France 24, a French public broadcast service, to understand why buying tickets online in advance is much recommended.
On average, more than 30,000 tourists visit this attraction.
This crowd results in long lines (see pic below) outside the Glass Pyramid.
These lines are NOT for buying the ticket but for security screening.
When you haven’t already bought Skip-the-Line tickets, you join this line at the end and wait your turn for the security check.
During peak season (June, July, and August), these lines wind all along the courtyard, and the waiting time can be as long as 3 hours.
What makes it worse is that this waiting is out in the sun (and lines are longest during summer!)
During non-peak months, this waiting time is around 30 minutes.
Louvre Museum tickets
If you plan to visit the Parisian Museum, we have a few tickets to recommend.
You can book skip-the-line tickets if you’re on a tight budget and get admission to Eugène Delacroix Museum.
Go on a guided tour and learn interesting facts about the attraction.
Families can consider buying tickets for a family tour for a more entertaining and educational tour.
Recommended
Skip-the-Line tickets
Image: Colnect.com
These are the cheapest and the most popular way to enter the art museum.
They get you to access both the permanent collection and the temporary exhibitions.
Cost of tickets
A skip-the-line ticket costs €25 for all visitors aged 18 years and above.
Admission is free for visitors under 18 years (or 26 for EU residents), disabled visitors and carers, and job seekers. Remember to carry valid IDs.
Adult (18+ years): €25
Buy This TicketGuided tour
There are many benefits to hiring an art expert guide to take you around the Louvre.
– You don’t waste your time trying to find the exhibits.
– You don’t miss out on any of the masterpieces.
– Expert guides share in-depth knowledge about the artwork, exciting stories, anecdotes, etc.
If you book this guided tour, you skip the lines and avoid all the crowd.
In three hours, the guide will take you on a smart route and show you the museum’s masterpieces and underrated gems.
Cost of tickets
The guided tour ticket for adults aged 18 and above is €69, while young visitors aged four to 17 can get the same ticket for €64. Infants up to three years old get free entry. The price varies on different times of the day and days of the week.
Adult (18+ years): €69
Youth (4 to 17 years): €64
Infant (up to 2 years): Free
Tour for families with kids
This 2-hour tour is customized for kids and adults, and a special children’s guide will host your family.
This highly-rated tour starts with the Mona Lisa and then moves on to other exhibits that keep the kids excited.
Since this is a skip-the-line ticket, you only wait for approximately 10 to 20 minutes at the security checks.
Cost of tickets
Tickets for a family tour cost €520 per group for up to five family members. The price varies based on the number of members in a group.
Tour Cost: €520 (for a family of five)
Buy This TicketVisual Story: 16 must-know tips before visiting Louvre Museum
If you want an exclusive art expert to guide you and prefer complete control over your tour, you must opt for a private tour of the Louvre Museum.
Some art lovers prefer to book guided tours of the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay. And some tourists are confused between the two. If you aren’t sure which Parisian art gallery you want to visit, check out our analysis – Louvre Museum or Musee d’Orsay.
Some tourists visit the Eiffel Tower and Louvre Museum on the same day. If you also plan to do the same, follow the links for directions:
– From Eiffel Tower to the Louvre Museum
– From Louvre Museum to Eiffel Tower
Opening hours
From Wednesday to Monday, the Louvre Museum opens at 9 am.
On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, it closes at 6 pm; on Friday, it closes at 9.45 pm.
On Tuesday, it remains closed.
| Day of the week | Timings |
| Monday | 9 am to 6 pm |
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | 9 am to 6 pm |
| Thursday | 9 am to 6 pm |
| Friday | 9 am to 9.45 pm |
| Saturday | 9 am to 6 pm |
| Sunday | 9 am to 6 pm |
Depending on the day, the employees start closing the rooms at different times.
The last entry is an hour before closing, and rooms are cleared 30 minutes before closing.
The attraction is closed on 1 January, 1 May, and 25 December.
How long does the tour take
At the Louvre Museum, visitors need at least 3 hours to explore masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, etc.
Tourists who have been to the attraction multiple times say that art fatigue sets in after approximately 2 to 3 hours of roaming around.
If you plan to stay longer, take a break at one of the many restaurants.
There are 380,000 artifacts in the museum, of which 35,000 pieces are on display. To see all 35,000 items on display for at least 30 seconds, you will need 36 days. More such Louvre Museum facts.
Best time to visit
The best time to visit the Louvre Museum is after 3 pm.
Most guidebooks and websites recommend users land up early at 9 am to avoid the crowd.
So, it is better to avoid a morning visit to the attraction.
On Fridays, it is open till 9.45 pm, and by 6 pm, all group and school tours are dispersed, so you can consider visiting after 6 pm for a more peaceful experience.
Seasoned art enthusiasts prefer to visit the museum at night.
When NOT to visit Louvre Museum
Musee d’Orsay is just 1.5 km (.9 miles) from the museum. It displays French art from 1848 to 1914 and attracts more than 8,000 tourists daily.
It is closed on Mondays and thus diverts all the traffic towards the Louvre Museum.
The additional tourists mean longer waiting lines and bigger crowds.
That’s why staying away from Musee Du Louvre on Mondays makes sense.
Also, we don’t recommend visiting the Louvre on weekends.
Thirty percent of all tourists visiting the Louvre are residents of Paris.
Since the residents work weekdays, they line up at the attraction on weekends.
The best time to photograph the Louvre Pyramid is Tuesday when the museum is closed. If you visit after dark, you will only find locals and some tourists hanging around the beautifully lit Glass Pyramid.
A virtual tour of Louvre Museum
The Louvre Museum takes you back to the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greek eras, introducing you to antiquities and masterpieces by artists such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and many other renowned artists.
See the paintings of The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, The Raft Of The Medusa by Théodore Géricault, and The Wedding Feast At Cana by Paolo Veronese, to name a few.
Check out sculptures of The Venus De Milo, Sleeping Hermaphroditus, The Winged Victory Of Samothrace, The Dying Slave, and The Rebellious Slave by Michelangelo.
Even the personal collections of French kings are on display.
Tourists can choose from various types of Louvre Museum tickets.
How to reach: The Grand Louvre is located next to the Seine River in central Paris.
Address: Musée du Louvre, 75058 Paris – France. Get Directions
Must see at The Louvre
There are many exhibits to see at the Louvre – 35,000 items in total.
To spend at least 30 seconds in front of each exhibit, you will need to spend at least 36 days at the attraction.
Before we list out the must-see items, check out how the exhibits are classified and laid out.
Classification of items
The exhibits are divided into eight different departments depending on the artwork/exhibit.
1. Paintings
2. Egyptian Antiquities
3. Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities
4. Near Eastern Antiquities
5. Sculptures
6. Decorative Arts
7. Islamic Art
8. Prints and Drawings
Every exhibit belongs to one of the above departments.
What to see in The Louvre Museum
The exhibits belonging to these eight categories are displayed across the three wings – Sully, Richelieu, and Denon.
Each of these wings has more than 70 rooms.
Sully Wing
The Sully Wing is the oldest part of the Musée du Louvre.
In Sully Wing, you can see remnants of the medieval castle of the Louvre and learn about its history.
On the ground floor of this wing, you will find one of the most beautiful sculptures – Venus of Milo.
Another must-visit artwork in this wing is the erotic Turkish Bath, painted in the late eighteenth century by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
One of the sculptures in the Sully Wing proves that artists can also pull a cruel joke.
Go and see ‘Sleeping Hermaphrodite’ in Room 17 of Sully Wing to know what we mean.
Don’t miss out on the 12-ton Great Sphinx of Tanis.
This Sphinx was sculpted sometime between 2,600 and 1,900 B.C. and has a lion’s body and a human head.
Richelieu Wing
You can see the art museum in all its glory in the Richelieu Wing.
On the first floor of this wing, you can see the highly decorated Napoleon III apartments as they were when he lived there.
Don’t miss out on Vermeer’s ‘The Astronomer’ and ‘The Lacemaker.’
The four Rembrandt self-portraits are also on display in this wing.
If you are into decorative arts, visit the first floor for a treat of clocks, furniture, chinaware, tapestries, showpieces, etc.
Denon Wing
Denon Wing attracts the most number of tourists to the Louvre Paris.
After all, it houses the most famous works—the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory of Samothrace, etc. Find out everything about the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum.
Some of the most exquisite French paintings are available in the Denon Wing.
Don’t miss Jacques-Louis David’s ‘The Coronation of Napoleon’ and Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People.’
The two sculptures in this wing, which we highly recommend, are ‘Psyche Revived by the Kiss of Love’ by Antonio Canova and ‘Dying Slave’ by Michelangelo.
Fun Read: When the Louvre Museum statues talked back
Tuileries Gardens
Most visitors to the Louvre Museum also visit the Tuileries Garden, located between the museum and the Place de la Concorde.
Some tourists come in early and spend time at the Tuileries Garden before walking to the art museum.
It opens for the public at 7 am all through the year.
From the last Sunday in September to the last Saturday in March, the garden closes at 7.30 pm.
From the last Sunday in March to the last Saturday in September, the garden closes at 9 pm.
The garden opens from 7 am to 11 pm every day in June, July, and August.
The evacuation of the public begins 30 minutes before closing time.
Audio guide
If you don’t want to spend the extra money on a guided tour, the next best thing is to book an audio guide.
To get a sense of how this Louvre-Nintendo audio guide works, check out this video below.
Using the audio guide on the New Nintendo 3DS, visitors can learn about the palace, its artworks, and its history.
The audio guide also uses geo-location to direct you to the most relevant information about the artwork.
It is available in nine languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.
The audio guides are available for rent for €5 per person at the museum.
Louvre entrances
The Louvre has four entrances – the Pyramid entrance, the Porte des Lions entrance, the Carrousel entrance, and the Porte de Richelieu entrance.
Each of them serves a different purpose.
Louvre Pyramid entrance
The entrance through the Glass Pyramid is the main entrance to the Louvre Paris. It is also known as the Le Pyramide entrance.
This 21-meter-high structure makes for great photographs, so most tourists prefer to enter from here.
Architect IM Pei built this structure.
Pei chose glass because he wanted it to be least intrusive and wanted the light to enter the foyer below. Directions to Pyramid Entrance.
Louvre Carrousel entrance
If you reach the museum by metro, it is best to get there from the Carrousel entrance.
The Carrousel du Louvre is an underground shopping complex situated next to the museum.
The -2 floor of this shopping complex has an entrance to the Louvre.
Once you have taken two sets of escalators to the -2 floor, walk past the line of underground shops, and you will spot the inverted pyramid.
Look around, and you can’t miss the Carrousel entrance.
This is also known as ‘the mall entrance’ and ‘inverted pyramid entrance.’
Interestingly, this doorway also leads to the same part of the museum as the Pyramid entrance. Directions to Carrousel entrance.
Tip: On Lines 1 and 7, the Metro stop for the Louvre Museum is ‘Palais Royale-Musee du Louvre.’
Porte De Richelieu entrance
The Porte De Richelieu entrance is accessible to those on a group tour or holding an annual museum membership pass.
As an individual ticket holder or a group of family members or friends, you can’t use this entry.
This entrance is between the courtyard (the area with the Glass Pyramid) and Rue de Rivoli Street. Directions to Porte de Richelieu entrance.
Porte des Lions entrance
While researching, you may have encountered many visitors suggesting Porte des Lions.
Until mid-2016, this access was a great way to beat the crowd. However, now, it is closed.
Paris being Paris, this may open again.
If you want to check this entryway, it shouldn’t take long because it is near the Pyramid entrance.
Look for the first set of Lions (closest to the Glass Pyramid) marking the entrance to the museum. Directions to Portes Des Lions.
Louvre Museum map
The trick is to stay aware of the masterpieces.
You don’t need the Louvre map if you have booked a guided tour.
But if you are on your own, we suggest you carry the floor plan.
This is the floor plan of the reception and exhibitions area, which is on the -2 basement floor. Follow this link to download the map of all the museum floors.
The map helps you locate the exhibits and spot visitor services such as restrooms, cafes, souvenir shops, and visitor assistance booths.
Food and drinks
Visiting the Louvre Museum can be tiring – there is so much to see and so little time.
So, we recommend regular snack breaks in between to keep your energy high.
There are 15 restaurants and cafes.
If you are looking for a sit, relax, and eat experience, opt for one of the three restaurants given below:
1. The Bistrot Benoit
Location: Under the Pyramid, Hall Napoléon
Opening Hours: Breakfast is available from 9 am to 11.30 am and lunch from 11.30 am to 5 pm. On Wednesdays and Fridays, it is open till 9.45 pm.
2. The Café Marly
Location: Cour Napoléon
Opening Hours: Open daily from 8 am to 2 am
3. The Café Richelieu-Angelina
Location: Richelieu wing, 1st floor Between the Napoleon III Apartments and Decorative Arts galleries.
Opening Hours: 10 am to 4.45 pm and until 6.30 pm on Wednesday and Friday. In July and August, it is open till 8.30 pm.
If you want to grab a quick bite and move on, we recommend the following cafes as well –
1. Café Mollien on the first floor of Denon Wing
2. The Comptoir du Louvre, located below the Pyramid
3. Denon and Richelieu takeaway counters located in the mezzanine entrances to the Denon and Richelieu wings
Recommended Reading
# Attractions near Louvre Museum
# Guided Tours of Louvre Museum
# Louvre Museum and Seine River Cruise Tickets
FAQs about the Louvre Museum
Here are a few questions visitors usually ask before visiting the attraction in Paris.
Is the Louvre Museum open on French holidays, and what are the timings?
The museum is open on most French public holidays, including Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Pentecost Monday, Bastille Day, Assumption Day, All Saints’ Day, and 1918 Armistice. On such holidays, irrespective of the day, the attraction opens at 9 am and closes at 6 pm (except Friday).
Does the Louvre Museum offer free entry?
On 14 July, the French National holiday celebrates the storming of the Bastille, and the museum allows everybody free entry. During the lean period of October to March, every first Sunday of the month is a free entry day. EU residents under 26, non-EU residents under 18, disabled visitors and the person accompanying them, and jobseekers with a valid ID are also eligible for free admission.
Can I take photos and videos at the museum?
Guests can take photos and videos of the permanent collections and not of temporary collections. Selfie sticks, flash, and lighting are strictly prohibited.
Are there lockers at the Louvre Museum?
Yes, a locker facility is available at the museum.
Can I re-enter the Louvre with the same ticket and on the same day?
No! Once a visitor makes an exit, he/she won’t get re-entry.
