Louvre Private Night Tour at 6pm: Three Wings in Three Hours

★★★★★ 4.9 (59 traveller reviews)

Starts 6:00pmYour party onlyArc du Carrousel

Three hours with a guide of your own, starting at 6pm in front of the Pyramid. You walk the medieval foundations, the Greek sculpture and the long gallery of Italian paintings, then come back out to the arch as the museum closes. The ticket, with a time slot, is in the fare, and nobody joins your party.

Hours, prices and access verified by the Louvre Tours team — last checked 2026-09-28.

More photos →

Three hours, three wings, one guide who answers to you

6pm at the Arc du Carrousel

You meet your guide at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, the triumphal arch on place du Carrousel, between the Tuileries and the Pyramid. Your guide waits there with a sign, and you walk to the Pyramid together.

Come a few minutes early and walk once around the arch before you start looking for faces. Travellers who arrived without a plan spent a quarter of an hour circling it. The arch, the Pyramid and the other meeting points are on the entrances and meeting points map, with the metro exits beside them.

Here is a detail worth knowing while you wait. The arch and the Pyramid do not line up, because the Seine bends and the palace and the Tuileries were never quite aligned. The Pyramid's architect, I. M. Pei, solved it by setting a statue of Louis XIV in front of the glass, where the view down the Tuileries begins. The Pyramid itself opened on 29 March 1989.

Three wings in three hours

The Louvre has three wings, Sully, Denon and Richelieu, and most two-hour visits pick one or two. Three hours is enough for all of them at a pace that leaves room for questions. You go in under the Pyramid with a timed ticket already booked, then climb into the palace with your guide.

That extra hour is the point of this evening. One traveller wrote that an immense museum, hard to grasp alone, became a clear story told at a pace older travellers could keep. Another, travelling with a partner of limited mobility, went round the highlights in two and a half hours using the lifts. If you want to see which works sit in which wing first, read what to see in a two-hour or three-hour evening.

Sully first: the medieval Louvre

You start underground, in the oldest part of the museum. The Louvre began as a fortress, and its medieval moat survives on Level -1 of the Sully wing. In 1528 King François I decided to pull down the medieval keep and build a Renaissance palace instead.

Starting here gives the rest of the evening a frame. Every gallery you walk through later was added to that fortress by a king, an emperor or a president, and your guide can tell you which.

Greek sculpture and the Italian paintings

From the foundations you climb to the Greek sculpture. The Venus de Milo stands almost alone at the end of a long run of rooms in the Sully wing. The Winged Victory of Samothrace waits at the top of the Daru staircase, where it has stood since 1883.

Then comes the long gallery of Italian paintings in the Denon wing, and the Salle des États, the largest room in the palace. The Mona Lisa hangs there behind glass, in the same room as The Wedding Feast at Cana, the biggest painting in the Louvre. Travellers on this evening found it less crowded than a midday visit, though never free of people. A guide who knows the room gets you to the front at the barrier without a scramble, and one traveller with limited mobility was taken behind it.

Richelieu, and the walk back out

The last wing, Richelieu, holds the Near Eastern antiquities and the Second Empire state rooms. How long you spend there depends on the time left and what you asked for at the start. The museum starts clearing its rooms at 8:30pm, so the final stretch of the three hours is the walk out through the Pyramid and back to the arch.

From September to March you step out after dark, with the Pyramid lit from inside. In summer the sun is still up at 9pm. The season-by-season light is set out on the visitor guide to the late openings.

Your three hours, from the arch and back

1. 6:00pm. Meet your guide and the sign at the foot of the arch.
2. Straight in. Walk to the Pyramid and enter on your timed ticket.
3. First. The Sully wing and the medieval foundations below it.
4. Next. Greek sculpture, then the staircase and its winged statue.
5. Then. The Italian paintings and the Salle des États.
6. Last. Richelieu, then back out to the arch as the rooms clear.

Who this suits, and who should book something else

What $336.54 a person covers for two, and for six

Know before you go

• Two travellers minimum. The fare is quoted a person for two and falls as your party grows to six.
• Only Wednesdays and Fridays. The museum is open until 9pm on those two evenings and admits nobody after 5pm on the others.
• Find the sign early. Arrive ten minutes before 6pm and walk round the arch once.
• Say what matters at the start. Name the works you want and any stairs to avoid, so the route fits you.
• Small bags only. Nothing over 55 × 35 × 20 cm goes in; lockers under the Pyramid are free.
• No flash. Photos are fine in the permanent collections, without flash or a selfie stick.

What travellers said on the walk back to the arch

Read all reviews →

Frequently asked questions