If you sightsee to actually enjoy what you see and you only have a few days in Paris, I recommend visiting the Musee d'Orsay instead of Le Louvre. True, you will not get to see the Mona Lisa, but I found many advantages to the Musee d'Orsay:
1) It's less crowded than the Louvre.
2) It's the everyman's museum. If you learned anything in school about art, you more than likely learned about Impressionism. This museum houses a great many number of works by all the artists you grew up knowing and loving: Degas, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, and Renoir. It also houses Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat (now you'll actually understand pointilism), and Toulouse-Latrec (the guy who drew on paper bags-just kidding).
3) It's not quite as big as the Louvre, therefore it's less overwhelming. When I went into the Louvre for the first time, it took me several minutes just to figure out which wing I wanted to start in.

Overall, I liked the art that the Musee d'Orsay contained much better. The Louvre contained alot of stuff, not exactly art, just stuff, most of which I was not interested in.

However, I'm not an art history person, I just like pretty things. So if you have time to spend in both museums, if you just have to see the Mona Lisa, or if you love all sorts of art, the Louvre will be perfect for you. I just hope you get to experience the wonder of the d'Orsay as well.



Recommended: Yes