I want to see the Mona Lisa?

[SouthernBuffer]

If you want to see incredible art without the bruising physical combat, just go to the Orsay museum down the street instead. Monet, Van Gogh, Degas... and you can actually stand close enough to appreciate them without an angry security guard yelling at you to keep moving

[Cass82]

Honestly? Prepare to be wildly disappointed. It is microscopic in person, and you are stuck behind a barricade roughly a mile away while a sea of people hold up their iPhones blocking the entire view. The room is absolute chaos

[Coastal Otter]

Wait, people actually still line up for this? Just look at a high-res scan on Google Images, zoom in until you can see the brushstrokes, and save yourself a $25 ticket and a panic attack from the claustrophobia lol

[Q]

Pro tip: do not just walk in through the main pyramid entrance. The lines there are legendary. Use the underground entrance via the Carrousel du Louvre instead. It saves so much time, though you still have to battle the crowds inside

[SharpFox]

Is it true that the one on display is a replica and the real one is locked in a high-security vault underneath Paris? I heard that rumor years ago and honestly, looking at how crazy the security is, I wouldn't even be surprised

[Josh_79]

It is definitely the real deal, the security glass is just incredibly thick and tinted, which makes it look a bit strange. It survived being stolen back in 1911, which ironically is what made it so famous in the first place! Before that, it wasn't even the most popular painting in the museum

[MrRicardo]

The Louvre is so massive your feet will literally fall off by hour three anyway. My advice? Grab a coffee and a pastry outside, stare at the glass pyramid for a bit, and then go find a nice park to sit in. Paris has way better things to offer than a tiny 500-year-old portrait

[Shane96]

Go right when the museum opens or during the late-night openings on Fridays. The crowd is significantly thinner. If you sprint straight there the moment the doors open, you can actually get about thirty seconds of actual quiet viewing time

[NeonPilot]

It really is smaller than you think though. Like, you read the dimensions online but until you see this tiny wooden panel drowning on a massive gallery wall, it doesn't register. Glad I saw it once, but I am absolutely never waiting in that line again

[CosmicRay17]

I remember reading somewhere that Leonardo da Vinci carried that painting around with him for years and never actually finished it to his satisfaction. Kind of funny to think the most famous artwork in human history is technically an incomplete draft

[Luca76]

Honestly, the best part of that room isn't even the Mona Lisa. It is the massive painting right directly opposite her called "The Wedding Feast at Cana" by Veronese. It takes up the entire wall and is absolutely breathtaking, yet everyone has their backs turned to it!

[Oscar_57]

My favorite part of the experience was watching the security guards trying to manage the crowd. They look so incredibly exhausted, just dead inside, repeating "no flash, keep moving" in five different languages all day long. Give those people a raise

[Amy]

I went last summer and it felt like being in a mosh pit at a rock concert, except everyone was wearing linen shorts and holding selfie sticks. Someone actually bumped into me so hard I dropped my sunglasses. 0 out of 10 experience

[Shane96]

I have to disagree slightly with the total cynics! Yes, the crowd is a complete nightmare, but there is something magical about just being in the same room as a piece of history that famous. Just go in with managed expectations