2. Louvre Museum

Louvre Museum is one of the main Paris attractions and the biggest art museum in the entire world! Considering the fact that Musee du Louvre is the most visited museum in the world, the museum staff is doing a great job, but you probably will still have to wait in a huge line to get in! Trust me, it is worth it though!

And I hope some of my tips below will help you to significantly cut the waiting time if not totally eliminate it.

RELATED READ: Going to Bordeaux too? Here are 10 things to do in Bordeaux, France – The ultimate guide!

The line really depends on the day you choose to visit – sometimes you can be lucky and go through the main gate almost without waiting (especially if you are visiting during the low season in Paris), but usually the Louvre is extremely crowded and the waiting time is very long.

PRO TIP: Louvre Museum launched an online app that you can download on your phone (in French) where you can check the estimated waiting time for the queues at the museum (Pyramide and Carousel).

Here is my advice on how to avoid lines at the Louvre:

Option 1: Buy the Louvre tickets online

The first option to avoid the Louvre queue would be to buy your print-at-home ticket online. For this, you only need to go on Louvre website here, select the day and hour of your arrival at the museum and, even though your ticket is not a skip-the-line one, it will give you access to the pyramid within half an hour of the time shown on the ticket. No need to stay in the huge lines to buy your Louvre Museum tickets! Just make sure to print your ticket beforehand (as you cannot show it on your phone) and do not be late!

Also, what you can do is to go to FNAC and buy your ticket from there. FNAC is a huge retail store of books, magazines, CDs and so on and they have stores everywhere in the city center. You can find the closest FNAC here. Another option would be to buy your Musee du Louvre tickets from the Tourist Information Center at the airport when you arrive.

Option 2: Use the Porte des Lions entrance

As you can see on this map (better quality downloadable file here), there are 3 entrances to the museum. I advise you to not choose the most obvious one, as that is the one that other tourists will choose too.

If you want to skip the line at the Louvre, you should know that there is a “secret” entrance called Porte des Lions that not many people know about! I advise trying that gate first because it is the best and almost nobody knows about it! If this entrance is closed because of technical reasons, I suggest you head to the Carrousel de Louvre entrance (located in the underground of the shopping mall).

The main one, called the Pyramid Entrance is always crowded, so you better avoid it at any cost.

You can find more information about the entrances and the working hours here.

Option 3: Take a Louvre Museum private tour or a normal guided tour

If you are willing to pay a bit extra, you can take a guided Louvre skip the line tour and enjoy the masterpieces of Louvre with a professional guide! One cool advantage is that, by taking this tour, you can also see the Mona Lisa without any hassle! For more info please go here.

However, if you want to take a guided group tour of the world-famous museum and skip the line, this guided Louvre fast pass tour is a great deal!

Are you searching for an exclusive tour with your own guide? You can get a private tour here!

Visiting with kids? There are some special family guided tours that are very interesting for any age. You can find the family tour here.