is there a best day or time for the lOuvre.. I read somewhere about evenings being less crowded.. and of course from another post the cafe at sunset sounds lovely!!

yes, the mid-week evening hours are some of the least crowded. you can go right at 6:30p or so and maybe even catch the sunset.

My favorite time to go is the mid week evening hours and I usually plan my visits specifically for these hours.

The last hour or so before closing is my favorite time.

Another vote for going during the evening during the week.

The Egyptian galleries are magical and mysterious at night.

My one and only experience with going during the evening hours -

<b>horrible</b>

They closed part of the galleries because of lack of staff - closed off the entire top floor of European paintings.

If you have the museum pass, you can go early in the am and get to the &quot;big 3&quot; before the crowd arrives.

No need for a museum pass to skip lines, just do not use the Pyramid entrance that most first time visitors flock to, enter from the shopping mall ( underground, enter off Rue Du Rivoli, under the awning) and buy ticket from machine, I have entered this way at least three times, in the SUMMER as I always go June, July, or August and occ. Sept.
Evenings are great, but if you are worried about closed sections you could go earlier , say about 4 or 5, many tourists get hungary around then and leave to go back hotel and get cleaned up for dinner , so crowds start to thin around 5 or so.

I think it all depends on you - on my first trip, we did the Louvre early in the morning with our museums passes. It was really crowded, but we were prepared for that.

On our second trip, we decided to see the museum in the late afternoon, which was around 4pm. We tried to go on a Friday(when it is open till 9:30pm), but had to go on a Saturday instead. It could be that because it was a weekend, there still was alot of people, but perhaps not as many as when we went during a morning.

Now, I really wasn't expecting it, but after just spending about 45 minutes in the Lourve, I was realllly tired. I initially thought it was a good idea(less people, could go to the markets in the morning), but it really was a bad idea for myself.

I was just too tired by that time in the afternoon to appreciate anything, and not being a huge museum buff in the first place, I was wiped out - all I could think about was finding dinner! We did this with the D'Orsay on a Thursday afternoon/evening with the same result.

For myself, I think I would put up with a bit more people so I could actually enjoy the different areas of the museum, than when I was already getting tired in the late afternoon.