Fine art of the Louvre: The Paris institution is not easy to navigate

BIG things usually get compared to Wales or football pitches.

Well, the Louvre Museum in Paris may not be the size of Wales but with 35,000 objects on display it is a bit like a long chain of football pitches where the players inspect every blade of grass.

Most of us already know the famous glass pyramid entrance, set like a jewel in the courtyard of a former royal palace beside the Seine.

We also know of the Mona Lisa and how the museum featured unforgettably in The Da Vinci Code. But therein lies part of the problem.

Before Dan Brown, visitor figures were some three million. Today, they are 10million and a large number of them want to take a selfie in front of the Mona. So how best to do it?

Do it yourself

The welcome foyer underneath the glass pyramid is a bit like a stone-clad airport lounge with three departure gates leading to various parts of the world.

Beyond it are cases and cases of delightful, beautifully made stuff from ancient turquoise hippos to model rowing boats, papyrus covered in writing to a whole case full of Egyptian mirrors made from polished brass.

Unfortunately, most of the labelling is in French so I struggle to work out what some of the things are.

I barely get among the tomb frescos and sarcophagi when I realise I’ve been in the museum for an hour, I’m still only in Egypt and my energy levels are beginning to ebb.

This is no good. So I head back to the foyer in search of a guided tour that will take me straight to the Louvre’s best bits.

The Masterpieces tour

I meet up with another 20 visitors as we assemble in the foyer. Equipped with headsets, we troop off behind our English-speaking guide in search of the Louvre’s equivalent of The Big Five: Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Delacroix’s Liberty, the Venus De Milo, The Winged Victory and David’s Coronation Of Napoleon (we need the headsets to stay in touch with our guide among the sheer numbers of people who swarm around these big names).

The tour is worthwhile.

We learn the mystery of the Mona and how some people think she might actually be a portrait by Leonardo of himself as a woman (thus the enigmatic smile).

We also admire the perfect texture of the marbled “skin” of the Venus De Milo, and how Delacroix’s Liberty used to be the image on the banknotes of France.

Our guide is pleasant but she is stressed about keeping everyone together and I get the feeling that she may have done this tour rather often before.

The tailor-made tour

My final tactic is to try an organisation called Localers offering tailor-made guiding.

I meet guide Jonathan at the designated rendezvous and he agrees that the crowds are a problem but there are plenty of galleries where there are practically no visitors.

“It all depends on how far away you are from the Mona Lisa,” he says.

He asks me what I want to see and I request no coin collections or weaponry, or bits of broken pottery. Otherwise it is up to him.

We pass the same sphinx but this time Jonathan explains the importance of the cartouche of symbols on its chest and how the Ancient Egyptians believed that, provided their names were visible, their spirits lived on.

In the Mona Lisa gallery we examine the painting everyone is ignoring – Veronese’s Wedding Feast At Cana – and Jonathan shows me how the King of France is depicted as a drunk sex maniac gazing at the Queen of Spain’s cleavage.

He shows me Gericault’s The Raft Of The Medusa and tells me how it was effectively the first equivalent of a news photo in French painting.

And then he points me towards the farthest reaches of the museum where I will have, he says, a very different experience.

Up in the Richelieu Wing it is just me and gallery after gallery of lovely French and Flemish paintings.

Never mind the 10million visitors a year, for my last experience of the Louvre I virtually have the whole place to myself.

Getting there

Eurostar (03432 186186/eurostar.com) offers return tickets from London to Paris from £29.50. The Louvre (louvre.fr), adults 26 and over e15; under 26 free.

Masterpieces tour (bookable on arrival), e12. Localers (localers.com) tours, from e72pp (group of six, entrance included).