Seeking advice on value/cost of Lourve guided tour...Will be in Paris with my elderly parents and am hoping to do Lourve in about 2 hours, but hoping to get a guided tour of highlights. How to arrange? Thank you.

A guided tour is not a bad idea, as you are with elderly parents but you need to book in advance. Try this site:http://www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm. Being someone who lives in Paris I find the price of good value. You can also choose which tour you prefer - either for the for the architecture or for expositions. Note that there are two different prices: one for the guided tour and the other to enter the museum, with reduced prices after 15h. Check the museum closing times, take the day it closes at 19h, you will have enough time to finish.<BR><BR>Hope this helps.

Two hours is pretty quick -- the Louvre is HUGE. It takes about 10 min to get from Venus de Milo to the Mona Lisa (unless they've moved Mona again). You may, for your parents sake, want to try to concentrate on one area of the Louvre. A tour may move too quickly (you know the pace your parents can keep). <BR><BR>The highlights to me are Napoleon's Apartments, the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Nike (Winged Victory) and the jewels. They're spread out all over. <BR><BR>If you did Venus and Nike, and then the statuary, you'd be fine. Maybe then a break and out to Napoleon's Apartments (I believe the jewels are on the way). <BR><BR>I, and everyone I took to the Louvre, found the Mona Lisa to be anti-climatic, but it's one of those things you have to decide for yourself I suppose....<BR><BR>Some exhibits close on certain days at certain times -- Napoleon's Apartments aren't open Monday evenings, if I remember correctly. <BR><BR>If you get a museum pass covering a couple of days, you could break up the visit, maybe making it easier on your parents.

You might want to take a look at the Louvre website, it's very good and helps you with an introduction to this huge treasure chest.<BR>Do you want the tour in English, or another language? You need to inquire as to what time your language is offered in a tour. Poster Christina mentioned last week that English tours take about 90 minutes and are offered daily except Sun at 11, 2, and 3:45; on Sundays at 11 only. <BR>Alternatively, you can do a little research in advance by going through the website or a good guidebook, and picking up a free map of the Louvre in the central desk under the Pyramid (there may be one on line also, can't remember) and mapping out your own tour. Then you can rent an acoustiguide and only go to see the works you want to see.

I'd like to clarify the information I posted, which was from the French section of the Louvre web site--the 90 min English-language tours are daily at 11, 2 and 3:45, including Sundays. There are a few Sundays with exceptions where there is one at 11:30 (June 16, 23 and 30, May 26). Now that I reread the site, it is confusing because it isn't clear if those days when it is at 11:30 whether that is in addition to the regular tours, or instead of the 11 am time. I don't think that is the only time they have one on those Sundays, though. The site implies that the 11:30 Sun. tour is in addition to the regular ones and is actually bilingual (French and English), but it could also mean the 11:30 time substitutes for 11 am. In any case, it is good to try to book those early as they fill quickly from what I've heard. They have some other theme tours but they are only in French. As I recall, you cannot book these by phone, you can only get tickets at the group welcome desk near Hall Napoleon, but up to 14 days ahead of time.

I did the English Language Louvre tour on a saturday 3 weeks back, it was at 11 am, pretty informative and covers a lot, venus, nike, mona, paintings renaissance and neo-classics(david etc.), no jewels, no egyptian history( which i went back and saw separately). u can use the museum tkt the whole day

My profound thanks to all of you for taking the time to share your combined wisdom. Bless you.... --LuisH.