All you need is Louvre!

Bonsoir! 

For our last full day in Paris, we visited the Louvre Museum! After a couple failed attempts, we finally got our pastries from Maison d'Isabelle one more time - this visit, we got their award-winning croissants and one chocolate viennoise to go. We then caught the metro over for our 9:00 timed tickets, taking a few moments to see the famous glass pyramid.

Once we entered, we walked up the grand staircase, passing by the Winged Victory of Samothrace, depicting Nike (the ancient Greek Goddess of victory), and walking straight to the Mona Lisa in the Salle des États in the Denon Wing. The sculpture at the top of the stairs was really cool, but one thing I learned was that several pieces of the sculpture were lost since it was discovered in the ocean. The sculpted right hand was later found and are now kept in a small showcase on the landing - this page on the Louvre's website was fun to read back through. This was my second time getting to see the Mona Lisa and it was fun to see how small the painting is and how much attention it gets!

At this point, we picked up the Rick Steves Louvre Audio Tour for the rest of our visit (thanks to Ray's parents & cousin for the recommendation)! We went a little out of order since we wanted to see Mona Lisa before all the tour groups showed up, but it was easy to pick up afterwards. The tour was helpful to see the museum's highlights including a few I've included below.

This painting, The Wedding Feast at Cana, is by Paolo Veronese and is the largest painting in the Louvre measuring at about 22x32 feet! It depicts the biblical story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding banquet, set in a lavish 16th-century Venetian style with over 130 figures. This one hangs in the same room as the Mona Lisa but gets significantly less attention. 

The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, which also hangs nearby, is one of the largest in the Louvre at approximately 20x32 feet. The painting captures the moment Napoleon passes the crown to his kneeling wife, Joséphine, rather than the moment he crowned himself - a deliberate display of independent political power which indicated Napoleon derived his own authority (not dependent on the Catholic Church). I thought it was kind of fun that the painting also had a "guide" to who all was in the painting engraved on the frame.

Next, we passed by the famous painting, Lady Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix. He painted this in 1830 honoring the "Three Glorious Days" of July 27-29, 1830 when French citizens rose up against censorship and King Charles X's absolute power. The painting includes people from various backgrounds, including middle class men, factory workers, craftsmen, and students and has since become a global icon for any popular uprising against tyranny. 

The next stop on the tour passed through the sculpture wings, including the Venus de Milo. The Venus de Milo comes from the Greek island Milos, where she was found in 1820 and acquired by the French ambassador to Greece at the time. We walked all the way around the sculpture, appreciating all of the intricate details in the marble. 

We also saw Michelangelo's Prisoners/Slaves. While Michelangelo carved a series of these monuments (more than 40 were planned in the original project), many were left unfinished due to funding issues and the commissioner Pope Julis II's death. The two in the Louvre were completed during Michelangelo's lifetime, and use a style where it looks like the slaves were breaking free from the marble leaving them with an unfinished appearance with the large blocks behind them. 

We also saw the Athena of Velletri (an Italian city just outside of Rome), which was a (huge) Roman copy of a lost Greek sculpture.

At this point, we took a quick stop for a break and snack - a couple quiches and espressos. Along the way, we passed several ornate and beautiful rooms and many amazing works by Raphael, a Francesco de Goya, and others. I did learn that after the daylight jewelry heist of October 2025, the royal jewels which were formerly displayed in the Apollo Gallery are no longer on display at the Louvre while they work to better secure the space (see more here).

We also enjoyed learning about how the Louvre became a museum (also here). The building spent more than 200 years as a royal palace starting in 1364 before the French Revolutionary Government eventually opened it as a public museum in 1793. Several monarchs left their mark on the building between 1546 (King Francis I) through 1682 (Louis XIV), when he moved to Versailles and the Louvre was no longer the main royal residence. During the Enlightenment, the French people wanted these artworks to be displayed. The Louvre's collection started with art from the church, royal family, and nobles - but grew through the seizure of art and archaeological items from territories and nations conquered in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. While much of the plundered art was returned, the ones that remain were from Napoleon's reign. The Louvre was not entirely opened to the public and fully devoted to museum purposes until 1993!

We made our way through the remaining rooms on the floor including pausing at this painting called Gallery of Views of Ancient Rome painted by Giovanni Paolo Panini. This piece is called a capriccio, an imaginary architectural gallery packed with highly detailed paintings of Rome's most famous monuments, arches, and sculptures, and was one of three distinct but closely related versions of this painting. I really enjoyed looking at this one!

While we saw lots of other artwork and exhibits in the museum, including antique furniture and re-creations of apartments, the last item I'll include here is The Great Sphinx of Tanis, one of the largest Egyptian sphinxes outside of Egypt at 15.7 feet long, 6 feet tall, and weighing about 26 tons. Historians estimate it to be more than 4,000 years old! It was found in 1825 and acquired by the museum in 1826, and now welcomes visitors to the more than 6,000 works covering almost 5,000 years of Egyptian history.

Phew! After our visit, we stopped for a quick drink at Le Nemours, a famous modern Parisian cafe close to the Louvre. While I forgot to get photos at the cafe, I also thought it was fun that the Palais metro stop (right between the Louvre and the cafe) was decorated like a crown :)

Afterwards, we headed over to the Galeries Lafayette for a browse - the stained glass ceiling and the view from the (free) rooftop were worth the visit! A couple other highlights - I left with a fun souvenir from the women's shoe section, and we also found my "twin" who was wearing nearly the exact same outfit! We took a short break at the hotel after our big day of sightseeing & museum visiting!

On the way back from dinner a couple days before, we walked by a spot that looked cute called Vingt Vins d'Art - thankfully, they had some reservations available so we grabbed one! This meal was one of our favorites of the trip. We each got a glass of white wine, their sériole marinée, navet, Karashi, and Huile de cebette (Amberjack/Yellowtail, turnip, karashi, and scallion oil), tsukune de poulet et oeuf parfait (chicken meatball with a slow-cooked egg), poisson du jour mariné au miso, sauce yuzukosho et legumes de saison (fish of the day with yuzu kosho sauce and seasonal vegetables), and the cheese cake au sésame for dessert. Each dish was so flavorful and yummy, the service was helpful & friendly (including a waitress who kindly brought her phone over with the menu translated to English), and the restaurant was located on a fun street to watch the world go by. We would absolutely go back!

À bientôt Paris! (See you soon!)

Amy