Louvre Museum, Paris

Our family of seven (ages 8 to 69) planned in advance and bought tickets to the “My First Louvre” private tour led by museum staff, directly from the Louvre website. The 90-minute tours are Saturdays and Sundays at 11 o’clock. It’s just a brief overview to get you started. I was most impressed by the below ground viewing of elements of the castle remains on which the Louvre was built. Tour included a history of the museum before we set off. Make sure you allow plenty of time to find the starting place of the tour within the museum. It took us awhile to find where to enter the museum, and then to find our way to the location to pick up our headsets and the room to wait. So allow at least 30 minutes. Trust me! A stop to view the Mona Lisa is included, but there is a Disneyland-type queue to get close enough to snap a photo. We enjoyed our brief taste of the museum very much. We also enjoyed that there were places in the pyramid section to purchase beverages and baguette sandwiches.

You probably need five weeks to cover the immense Materials in here. It’s incredible collection. I highly recommend at least one full day and to get the audio guide. Start with the masterpiece trial to get a good introduction. Left the museum by buying a guidebook that I’m still perusing at this point. Total mind blowing experience.