Best time to go to Museums
 

What is the best time of the day to go to very popular museums? Best time to avoid tour groups, cruise groups, school groups? The museums I am interested in: Lourve, d'Orsay, Uffici(sp?) in Florence, Accademe (Florence), Sistine Chapel. I know what days the museums are open, just wondering the best strategies to minimize the crowds.

The Louvre at 5pm on monday was a great time to go. First, they discount the ticket price latter in the day. The best part was that the place was empty. We were the only people in the salon that contains the Mona Lisa! Afterwards, walk over the Seine to a great left bank restaurant.

In Italy, a good time to go is between noon and 4pm when most churches <BR>(and many of them have important works of art) are closed for riposo ("siesta"). <BR>The Uffizi allows for advance reservation of tickets to avoid the entrance line, which can be hours long. <BR>Accademia also allows for advance booking, sometimes line without reservations is very long but some have said that late afternoons the line for the A isn't bad. <BR>The Sistine Chapel is the last stop when doing a tour of the Vatican Museums. <BR>Advance booking not available, line can be very long. <BR>To avoid entrance lines at the Louvre and the Orsay, buy a Museum Pass- <BR>Carte Musee in Paris which includes the admission fee for many museums and monuments but is most important for avoiding the lines at the L and the O. <BR>

Watch the Louvre closing times and also which days certain areas are closed (if you want to see Napoleon's Apartments, make sure they're open the day you're going or that they don't close them the night you'll be there!) Getting there later and paying the reduced fee means that you only have a couple/few hours to see what you want to see and enjoy what you stumble across on the way. <BR> <BR>And the first Sunday of the month is free -- guaranteed to be crowded! But the museum pass is a great deal if you're planning on seeing several museums in on one day or a bunch over several days. If you don't go for the museum pass, check out other entrances to the Louvre - the "pyramid" is always the most crowded.

Great advice! Please, please keep them coming!

The Louvre is much less crowded late. It is also open Wednesday evening until 21:45. The Orsay is open on Thursday evenings. Also Paris and probably other European Cities are not crowded due to "America's New War", so anytime is good. Sometimes school groups and tour groups aren't that bad either but they aren't there at night as far as I know. Bon voyage.

It does depend on the time of year. We were in Florence in June and were very happy that we had reservations for Accademia and Uffizi, the lines were enormous all day until closing, we waited 10 minutes and were in. You can get into the Bargello if you get there when it opens, no lines until later. Our hotel made all reservations for us.