Louvre Museum
Eight thousand years of human civilization housed in a former royal palace.
The Louvre is the world's most visited museum and one of the largest, occupying a grand palace complex on the right bank of the Seine that served as the seat of French royalty for centuries before becoming a public museum during the Revolution in 1793. It holds somewhere in the region of 35,000 works on permanent display — paintings, sculptures, antiquities, decorative arts — spanning from ancient Mesopotamia to the mid-19th century. The glass pyramid entrance, designed by architect I.M. Pei and opened in 1989, sits at the centre of the Cour Napoléon and has become as iconic as anything inside.
Most visitors come for the headline works: the Mona Lisa (smaller than you expect, behind glass, perpetually mobbed), the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace — the latter dramatically positioned at the top of a grand staircase and genuinely breathtaking. But the Louvre rewards anyone who wanders beyond these marquee stops. The ancient Egypt galleries are extraordinary, the Mesopotamian antiquities — including the Code of Hammurabi — are among the finest in the world, and the French crown jewels and royal apartments in the Richelieu Wing give real insight into the scale of Bourbon ambition. The building itself is part of the experience: gilded ceilings, parquet floors, and rooms that once housed kings.
The museum is divided into three wings — Denon, Sully, and Richelieu — and attempting to see everything in one visit is a fool's errand. Smart visitors pick two or three areas and go deep rather than rushing the whole thing. Book timed-entry tickets online well in advance, especially in summer. Wednesday and Friday evenings, when the museum stays open until 9pm, are significantly less crowded than daytime slots and are the insider's choice for a more peaceful experience.
