The Louvre is the world’s most popular museum with over 7.8 million people visiting in 2022. Visitor numbers are currently capped at 30,000 daily, but even with timed tickets, expect having to wait in a queue. If you haven’t pre-purchased tickets, you may be waiting for hours. We booked late-night tickets hoping to avoid the inevitable summer crowds, and yes, it was much quieter than across the day. But one overarching fact remained. Most people are there just to say they’ve seen the Mona Lisa. They scan their tickets, and literally race fellow art -lovers to get there, shunning much more beautiful, more interesting, more thought-provoking works to see da Vinci’s wryly smiling icon. So before we go any further. Tick. Seen it. It’s okay.

The museum is enormous, covering over 60,000 square metres. It was built originally as a fortress, became France’s royal residence, and was then converted into a museum to hold what was once the collection of artworks owned by the French royal family. The museum holds more than 380,000 objects and displays tens of thousands of works of art. One day alone is not enough to explore every section of the museum. We managed to get a fair chunk in though, and these were our highlights.

1. The statuettes

Some of these smaller statues at around 30 cm showed absolute queens slaying the house down. (Can you tell I have two teenagers?!). I love these girls’ confidence, their defiant glares, and the way the mamma is holding her baby like a handbag. She’s done with the crying and long nights. I do know the 16th century bronze is St. Catherine, doing the traditional saint thing of holding the instruments of their torture; in this case the wheel (hence the firework called the Catherine Wheel), and the sword. Not sure about the provenance of these other legends. But I love them all.

2. The ceilings

The ceilings in some sections of the Louvre are nothing short of spectacular. The colours are rich and vibrant depicting battles, biblical stories, goddesses and kings. Incredible.

3. The Apollon gallery

I overheard a tour guide say that this wing is only opened for an hour each day across summer so that it doesn’t become overheated. I’m not sure how true this was, but when the Louvre staff unlocked it, and we were close by, we took up the chance to soak in its riches. Vintage crown jewels from 1532 are housed in cases in the centre of the room, but the ceiling again was the stand out here. It was in this space that Louis XIV first associated his royal power with the divinity of the sun via art, and the seasons and 12 signs of the zodiac are depicted alongside his coast of arms, and the god Apollo racing across the sky.

4. The Napoleon III Apartments

Cam had read that these apartments are rarely visited, and we were some of the only ones there. Napoleon sure had extravagant taste. The apartments, built for his Minister of State and his family, are opulent, but fabulous, dripping in velvet and gold. The chandeliers exquisite. If I was a visiting head of state, I’d be well impressed.

5. Some other faves

I bought post cards of my favourite Louvre paintings when I visited in my 20’s. Unsurprisingly, they’re still at the top of my list. While I love renaissance religious art, I appreciate it more in situ in churches across Italy. The paintings below are mostly newer and are dripping in drama and romanticism, albeit slightly morbid. “The Young Martyr” (1855) by Paul Delaroche; “The Burial of Atala” (1808) by Anne-Louis Girodet; and “Aurora and Cephalus” (1810) by Pierre-Narcisse Guerin all play with light. And the subjects are all stunningly beautiful. The Antonio Canova sculpture “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss” (1793) has always been a favourite of mine (I bought a lithograph of this when I was 18 and still have it on my wall), the Paris Bordone pic which lives in the same room as the Mona Lisa is just plain hot, and the “Diana of Versailles” statue (created around 125 AD…WHAAAAT?) is strong and beautiful.

If you’re in Paris on a Friday, I recommend visiting at night when the museum is open until 9:45pm. Tickets are a very reasonable 17 euros, with under 18s free.