Louvre Museum — Paris, Summer 2026

The Musée du Louvre is both the world's most-visited museum and one of its largest, a former royal palace on the Seine holding tens of thousands of works spanning antiquity to the mid-19th century. I.M. Pei's glass Pyramid in the Cour Napoléon marks the modern entrance and has become as much a symbol of Paris as the collection below it. The building itself — medieval fortress, Renaissance palace, imperial residence — is inseparable from the art, and part of the pleasure is simply moving through its scale.

What to see

Three stars pull the biggest crowds: Leonardo's Mona Lisa, smaller and more thronged than first-timers expect, in the Denon wing; the armless Venus de Milo; and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, poised at the top of the Daru staircase. Beyond them the depth is staggering — Géricault's Raft of the Medusa and David's vast Coronation of Napoleon in the French painting rooms, the Egyptian antiquities with their sphinxes and sarcophagi, the Near Eastern winged bulls of Khorsabad, and the sumptuous Napoleon III Apartments. Trying to "do" the Louvre is a mistake; pick two or three departments and let the rest go.

Know before you go

Plan on at least three hours and accept you'll see a fraction. A timed-entry ticket is essential, and reservations are required for all visitors from 1 July to 31 August 2026. Enter via the Pyramid or, to skip the worst of it, the underground Carrousel entrance. Free admission applies to under-18s and to EEA residents under 26, and to everyone on the first Friday evening of the month (except July and August) and on 14 July. The museum is closed on Tuesdays.