Musée du Louvre

Housed in a grand former royal palace along the Seine, the Louvre exhibits legendary masterworks including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory of Samothrace.

Originally a 12th-century medieval fortress built by King Philip Augustus, the Louvre was transformed into a royal residence before being inaugurated as a public museum during the French Revolution in 1793. Today, its 73,000 square metres of exhibition space display masterpieces of Western art from the Middle Ages to 1848, alongside ancient Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities. I.M. Pei's iconic glass pyramid entrance, added in 1989, creates a stunning dialogue between classical French Renaissance stone and modern minimalism.