The Louvre is more than a museum: it’s a palace, it’s a town/world of its own. And it is soooo crowded: 10.2 million visitors in 2018 like shown on the picture above! But that record won't be reached anymore as the actual curator wants to limit the number of visitors to 30.000 maximum per day. When you know that in 2018 they had had peaks over 50.000 per day, that means that during the high season where, due to mass tourism, I expect the demand to reach 60.000 per day, half the number of tourists in Paris won't be able to visit the museum (unless they booked their entrance tickets a long time in advance... So much for spontaneity. Anyway, crowded or not, the Louvre can be very intimidating. Best time to visit is at 9 am at the opening, or after 6 pm on Fridays as it's late night opening until 9.45 pm. Not only is it then less crowded (there are almost no group tours) but you can do something else during the day.  

So, how can one see everything which is visible inside the Louvre anyway? The thing is: you can't, it's impossible.

There are 35,000 works of art inside the Louvre. I calculated that if you spend one minute in front of each work of art, you'll need 24 days non-stop. My orientation tour of the Louvre, which includes all the famous masterpieces (Mona Lisa + Venus de Milo + Winged Victory) + many other pieces that I enjoy commenting on, takes about two hours. Now, if you really are a museum aficionado and you want to see more than most, I can easily entertain you for a couple more hours by bringing you to the new furniture rooms (inaugurated in 2014) which are exquisite, then we can go to the new wing inaugurated in 1993, completely remodeled by I.M. Pei, where we can see what is known as the "Napoleon the third's apartments", most of the French paintings (David, Delacroix, Le Brun, Boucher…), the Flemish paintings (Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck…) and many more! One of the good things, when you have your own guide, is that you can play the game « stop or encore ». We can always take a break for lunch but, since 2021, your ticket is no longer valid all day: once you exit the premises of the museum, you cannot go back in unless you have another time-slot together with another ticket that you've paid for a second time! And even if you buy a museum pass (which I used to recommend), it will now allow you only "one single admission to each museum"! All this means that, if you plan to spend the whole day inside the Louvre, you will have to remain under the pyramid for lunch. Your options will be limited to industrial sandwiches, a decent cafeteria and one real bistrot restaurant. Not ideal but not so bad for you art lovers who priviledge food for thought!

(Page updated in January 2022)