Louvre Museum Tickets and Tours

There are many ways to describe the Louvre: you can talk about its impressive building, the Tuileries Gardens, its glass pyramid, its collection of Egyptian art, or Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. My recommendation is to buy tickets in advance so you don't have to wait in line for hours at the door. These are the best options you can find online:

The most practical

Louvre Museum Tickets with Hosted Access to the Mona Lisa

Tickets to the Louvre with host

Perfect if you don't want to waste time at the ticket office and want a host to accompany you to the door and guide you to the Mona Lisa room.

From AED 343 at Hellotickets

Given the large number of visitors every day, buying tickets in advance is almost essential. Although you always have the option of queuing at the ticket office, the internet is the best way to purchase them conveniently. You can obviously do this on the museum's official website, but if you want something more, it may be worth buying a ticket that includes a host to help you with everything.

With this option, someone will be waiting for you near the museum with your ticket ready and will accompany you to the appropriate entrance. They will also take you directly to the room that attracts the most attention: the one that houses the Mona Lisa.

Whichever option you choose, I recommend picking up the free museum map at the entrance if you want to quickly locate the great works in each room: the map is designed precisely for this purpose and will be very useful for finding your way around. The audio guide is highly recommended. It costs five euros at the entrance, is available in several languages and is often included in many ticket packages.

Why I like this option: this option allows you to avoid the endless queues, visit the museum for as long as you like and decide for yourself which works you want to stop and look at.

Recommended if... you want to enjoy the museum at your own pace, without fixed schedules or guided groups.

If you want to visit the Louvre, you can go to Hellotickets and buy your ticket with a host to the Louvre quickly and conveniently. All you have to do is select the day and time you plan to visit when making your reservation.

You can also buy your tickets at the ticket office, but in this case, you will have to wait in long queues and run the risk of not getting a ticket. The museum's website is another good option, although in this case you will have to access it without the help of a host.

Another great option is to book a guided tour of the Louvre Museum without queuing, a highly recommended option because for a little extra money you can tour the museum with explanations from an expert guide.

In my opinion, booking a guided tour is the ideal way to enjoy the Louvre, as there is so much to see that it is the best way to cover the immensity of this museum in the shortest possible time. What's more, you'll avoid the queues at the entrance.

And thanks to an expert guide who will accompany you throughout the tour, you will learn all the details about the main works, such as the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Liberty Leading the People. This way, you can be sure to see the main works and not miss anything. And, of course, if you want to continue the tour on your own once you have finished, you can do so.

Why settle for visiting only the Louvre during your stay in Paris? Few cities have so many museums to offer, with several world-renowned ones such as the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Rodin and the Musée Picasso.

To visit more museums (and other monuments in the city), there's nothing better than the Paris Museum Pass. This card, available for 2, 4 or 6 days, gives you access to more than 50 museums and monuments in Paris, including the Louvre.

To make things clearer, here is a brief summary of the different options available if you want to visit the Louvre Museum.

If you buy your tickets for the Louvre at the ticket office, you can save two or three euros (the surcharge for online purchases), but in exchange you will have to queue for a long time and you run the risk of finding that tickets are sold out for the day and time you want to visit the museum when you get to the ticket office.

To avoid this, if you do decide to buy your tickets at the ticket office, try to go first thing in the morning (it opens at 9 a.m.) and don't choose a public holiday to visit the museum. With this option, the audio guide costs an additional five euros.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to leave you an article with tips for visiting the Louvre with children.

• When to go: the museum is open almost every day of the year except Tuesdays. Any time is a good time to visit this impressive collection, but in the afternoon, especially on Wednesdays and Fridays when it stays open until almost 10 pm, and at lunchtime, there are usually fewer visitors. Check all the information about opening hours here.
• How to get there: the Louvre is in the centre of Paris. The entrance is through the glass pyramid and you can also access it directly from the "Palais Royal Musée du Louvre" metro stop on line 1. If you have any questions, check out the post on how to get to the Louvre.
• Duration of the visit: seeing the Louvre in less than three hours is pointless unless you choose to book a guided tour focusing on specific works. I explain the different types here. An in-depth visit will probably take you a whole day. For more information, see the post on how long it takes to see the Louvre.
• Free admission: certain groups are admitted free of charge to the Louvre, such as children under 18, EU citizens under 25, art teachers and disabled persons with a companion. In addition, there are certain days and times when admission is free for everyone, such as the first Sunday of the month and 14 July (Bastille Day) from 6 p.m. onwards. Even if you have free admission, you must book a day and time slot on the museum's official website. See here for more details on prices.
• Where to eat: there is a café and restaurant inside the Louvre Museum. This is the best option if you are visiting the museum. However, it will be somewhat more difficult to find places to eat in the surrounding area. If you would like more details, read the post on where to eat near the Louvre.
• Visit the shop: I highly recommend visiting the shop, although I warn you that you will want to buy everything, so if you are on a tight budget, think twice.
• How to behave: the usual rules for large museums apply at the Louvre. Photography is allowed, but you must not touch the works of art, you must remain relatively quiet, and you cannot bring food into the museum.

If you visit the museum with children, make sure they won't get tired and run around the corridors and rooms. A very good option is to take a tour of the Louvre adapted for children; this will encourage their interest in art and they will enjoy the museum much more.

I recommend getting an adaptedaudio guide so that all members of the family can explore the museum at their own pace, focusing on the topics that interest them most.

Personally, I have never been to a museum where I have seen as many works of art as in the Louvre. If this is the most visited museum in Europe, it is not only because it is a delight for art lovers, but also because the general visitor will recognise a significant number of the works housed in the museum.

Choosing what to see is more difficult in the Louvre than in any other museum (there are 35,000 works of art inside, from almost all artistic periods and from various sources). However (and bear in mind that there are some important omissions), if we had to make a list of the best known, it would look something like this:

• Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa: this is the museum's star attraction. However, before you get "disappointed", I should tell you that you won't be able to see it up close; the painting is protected by a security barrier several metres away because it has been the target of several attacks. Even from a distance, it is a must-see as it is the star attraction of the Renaissance and one of the most legendary paintings in existence.
• Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People: the painting depicts the popular uprising against the crown in Paris in 1830, which ended with the deposition of the last Bourbon to reign in France: Charles X. In this work, liberty is represented allegorically as a woman in the centre of the painting waving a flag.
• The Venus de Milo: one of the most representative statues of the Hellenistic period of Greek sculpture. This female figure has not always been an armless torso, but it is unknown how she "lost" them and there are even several theories about how they were represented. The fact is that the perfection of the forms is well worth a few minutes of contemplation.
• The Wedding at Cana by Veronese: one of Veronese's most famous paintings. It depicts the first miracle of Jesus Christ; during a wedding, the Gospel of St John says that he turned water into wine. The lighting of the painting and the detail of its characters deserve several minutes of your attention.
• The Victory of Samothrace: one of the largest statues you will find in the museum. It depicts the Greek goddess Nike, Goddess of Victory. Although its aesthetics (the sculpture has no head) have been criticised by many, it is considered a key work of sculpture, and you only have to look at the detail of its folds to see why.
• Code of Hammurabi: the most emblematic piece of Mesopotamian art. It contains the civil laws in force during the reign of Hammurabi, making it an essential find for learning more about the culture of this historical period.

Here is a very interesting post if you would like to learn more about these works.

The Louvre Museum is so large and famous that it easily overshadows other museums in Paris. After seeing all the works in the Louvre, it's easy to wonder: could there be more? There is. Paris is full of museums, and each one is worth a visit.

My favourites are the Musée d'Orsay (a real gem) and the Pompidou Centre for contemporary art, but the list of options is much longer. If you want to know more, you can read this article about The 16 Best Museums in Paris