Closing Time At The Louvre: From Mona Lisa to Venus de Milo

Your guide leads a route through the Louvre to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa - one of the most recognized paintings in the world, alongside covering the collection's other essential works.

The Medieval Moat & Classical Sculpture
Your guide has refined this route across countless visits to make sure you ample time inside the galleries, starting with the moat of the museum's original medieval fortress. From there, walk through the Greek and Roman collection to see the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Cupid & Psyche, and Michelangelo's Slaves.

French Painting: Revolution, Tragedy, and One Very Large Canvas
This is Paris's largest art museum, so French painting gets its own chapter. See Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa, and the Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon's official court painter. Your guide explains Delacroix's reference to the French Revolution, the real shipwreck behind Géricault's painting, and why David painted Napoleon's canvas at a scale historians still debate.

Italian Masters
The tour also covers works by Caravaggio, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, three of Italy's most significant painters represented in the collection.

A Royal Palace, Not Just a Museum
The Louvre was a royal residence before it was a museum, and your guide explains its history as you move between galleries, including the story of a young prince who once rode his horse through these same corridors.

Face to Face with the Mona Lisa
Your guide leads you to the Salle des États, where the Mona Lisa hangs, and shares her full story just outside the room, the theft that made her famous in 1911, the debate over who actually sat for the portrait, and why da Vinci carried the painting with him for years instead of delivering it. Once inside, you're free to take in the small canvas at your own pace, close enough to see the brushwork that's kept art historians arguing for centuries.

You'll explore with an expert art historian guide and a group of up to 20, learning the history behind each work rather than just walking past it. Your guide covers real specifics: how the Venus de Milo's age came to be misrepresented, and who's believed to have posed for the Mona Lisa.

Sites Visited
Louvre Museum, the Mona Lisa, Italian sculpture galleries, Classical Greek art rooms, French painting galleries, the medieval Louvre moat exhibit

Please note:

Louvre Museum entry (€28 per person) is included in this tour's price.

Visitors under 18 and EEA residents under 26 can visit the Louvre free of charge with valid ID and proof of residency, outside of a group tour.