Louvre Museum

In October 2025, thieves disguised as construction workers broke into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon through a window and stole eight pieces of the French Crown Jewels in under eight minutes. The heist, valued at approximately 88 million euros, forced the museum to close for two days and led to the resignation of its director in early 2026. As of mid-2026, the stolen jewels have not been recovered, the Galerie d’Apollon remains closed to visitors, and some pieces from the Crown Jewels collection that were not stolen have been transferred to the Bank of France for safekeeping. If the Apollo Gallery was on your list, check the museum’s room availability page before you go.

That caveat aside, the Louvre remains the largest art museum in the world and is very much open. With over 380,000 objects in its collection and roughly 35,000 on permanent display, a single visit will cover perhaps three percent of what is here. The right approach is not to try to see everything but to choose a few galleries and see them properly.

Tickets and hours in 2026

The Louvre introduced dual pricing in January 2026. EEA residents pay 22 euros; visitors from outside the European Economic Area pay 32 euros, a significant increase from previous years. Children under 18 and EU residents aged 18 to 25 enter free. Timed-entry booking is mandatory: you book a 30-minute arrival window through the official site (ticket.louvre.fr), which means you bypass the general queue and go directly to the timed-entry lane. Book well in advance for summer dates; slots sell out days ahead during peak season.

Opening hours are 9am to 6pm daily except Tuesday, when the museum is closed. On Wednesdays and Fridays the Louvre stays open until 9:45pm. The Wednesday and Friday evening sessions are the single best crowd-dodge available. Visitor numbers drop sharply after 6pm, the light through the glass pyramid shifts to something more atmospheric, and the galleries are genuinely navigable.

What to prioritise

The Denon Wing houses the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo. These are the three most visited works in the museum and, during summer midday hours, the crowds around them are dense. The Mona Lisa in particular sits behind heavy glass at the far end of a large hall, with visitors pressing forward to take photographs of it. The painting is smaller than most people expect, roughly 77 by 53 centimetres. The experience of standing in front of it at peak time is mostly an experience of standing in a crowd. If you go on a Wednesday or Friday evening, the hall is far quieter and you can actually look at the painting.

The Richelieu Wing, which contains the Raft of the Medusa and the Dutch and Flemish masters, is less visited by casual tourists and rewards slower attention. The Egyptian Antiquities section, spread across ground and first floors, is one of the largest Egyptian collections outside of Cairo, covering the period from 4000 BCE through the Roman era.

The medieval moat and foundations of the original Louvre fortress are accessible from the Sully Wing basement, free with your museum ticket. Most visitors walk past the entrance without noticing it. The original keep of the fortress dates from around 1190, built under Philippe II, and the excavated foundations are substantial. Seeing the medieval structure beneath the baroque palace beneath I.M. Pei’s 1989 glass pyramid is one of the better architectural layers-of-time experiences in Paris.

Getting there

The nearest metro stops are Palais Royal-Musee du Louvre (lines 1 and 7), a two-minute walk from the Richelieu entrance. The museum has multiple entrances; if you have a timed-entry ticket and the queue at the pyramid is long, the Richelieu entrance on the Rue de Rivoli side is often significantly shorter.

Where to eat

Cafe Marly, in a covered arcade on the Richelieu wing facing the pyramid, serves solid French brasserie food at Parisian tourist prices (expect 15 to 25 euros for a main). It is the best-positioned cafe for a mid-visit break and the courtyard view is genuinely good. For something cheaper, exit the museum and walk five minutes to the covered Galerie Vivienne or Galerie Colbert; both have small cafes with less footfall and lower prices. Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli, famous for its thick hot chocolate, is about ten minutes on foot and worth it if you have the time.

Where to stay

Hotel du Louvre sits directly opposite the Palais Royal entrance and is the most convenient address for early-entry visits. It is expensive (200 euros and above per night). The 1st and 2nd arrondissements offer mid-range alternatives within a ten-minute walk. If you are flexible on budget, the 9th and 10th arrondissements are a fifteen-minute metro ride and offer far better value.

One thing the official materials do not emphasise

The Louvre was originally a royal fortress, then a royal palace, before becoming a museum in 1793. Its conversion was driven partly by revolutionary politics: the new Republic needed a way to make royal art collections accessible to citizens rather than exclusive to the court. The museum opened to the public on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of the abolition of the French monarchy. That founding context is easy to lose when you are navigating a crowd of visitors photographing the Mona Lisa, but it gives the place a different quality of meaning if you hold onto it.

Check the room availability list at louvre.fr before visiting. Sections close regularly for maintenance, loan agreements, and, in the case of the Galerie d’Apollon, ongoing security work. Spending five minutes on that page before you arrive will save you from a wasted detour inside a museum so large that a wrong turn costs twenty minutes.