Musée d'Orsay

How to visit without wasting the trip

The Orsay sits across the Seine from the Louvre in a former 1900 railway station, and that’s the first thing to understand: the building is part of the visit. The great vaulted hall with the glass roof, the giant gilded station clock, and the second clock face you can stand behind on the top floor are reasons to look up as much as at the walls. But the reason to pay in is the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection — Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, and the Van Gogh rooms — which is the densest run of paintings-you-already-know-by-name in Paris.

Buy a timed online ticket before you go. At about €16 it’s a couple of euros dearer than the €14 door price, but it lets you walk past the main ticket queue, which backs up fast on Tuesday and Sunday mornings. When you’re inside, go straight up to the top floor first for the Impressionists while you’re fresh and before the coach groups arrive — most people work bottom-to-top and run out of energy before they reach the best rooms. The ground floor (Manet, Courbet, the early-realist and academic works) and the sculpture nave are better done on the way back down.

The Thursday trick, and is it worth it?

If your dates allow it, come on a Thursday evening. The museum stays open until 21:45 (last admission 21:00), the after-18:00 ‘night’ ticket drops to about €12, and the galleries are far calmer than a weekend morning. Otherwise aim for the 09:30 opening or around midday on a Wednesday or Friday, and avoid Tuesday and Sunday — the two busiest days. Allow an hour and a half to two hours for the highlights, more like three if you want the sculptures and the full Post-Impressionist sweep, plus fifteen to twenty minutes for security even with a timed ticket.

A note for 2026: a renovation of the entrance forecourt and canopy runs from March 2026 through summer 2028. The museum stays fully open throughout, but expect hoardings around the front and follow the signed entrance on the day.

Worth knowing on price: under-18s of any nationality and EU/EEA residents aged 18–25 get in free with ID, and entry is free for everyone on the first Sunday of the month if you reserve a timed slot online ahead. UK adults over 25 pay the standard fare.

If you do one big museum on a first Paris trip, make it the Orsay rather than the Louvre. It’s the right size for a single visit, the building rewards you on its own, and you leave having actually seen the famous things rather than a fraction of a vast palace. If you’re already an Impressionist fan, pair it the same week with the Musée de l’Orangerie a ten-minute walk across the river for Monet’s Water Lilies — a combined ticket covers both and is valid over two separate days within three months.