The Louvre

With an amazing, 8.8 million visitors in 2011, the world's largest museum are also its most frequented. It's a multi-level maze of galleries, corridors, staircases, and escalators that's a city within a city. It's famed for the artistic treasures it houses, but the museum's basic structure is a masterpiece in and of itself - or rather, a collection of masterpieces that have been updated and added to over the centuries.

The additions and changes continue to this day, with the introduction of a significant new Islamic Arts section in 2012 and the franchising of the Louvre's 'brand' via new outposts in Lens and Abu Dhabi. This is the site that most exemplifies the centrality of culture in French life.

There are around 35,000 items of art and antiquities on display, which are divided into eight sections and housed in three wings: Denon, Sully, and Richelieu. Each wing of the glass pyramid has its own entrance beneath the atrium, though you can walk from one to the other. Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman art, as well as Middle Eastern and Islamic art, have their own galleries in the Denon and Sully wings. The first level of Richelieu is dedicated to European ornamental arts from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, including numerous rooms from Napoleon III's opulent palaces.

Art and sculpture, however, are the main attractions. On the ground floor of Richelieu, two glass-roofed sculpture courts house the famed Marly horses, with French sculpture below and Italian Renaissance sculptures in the Denon wing. Like a mini-Uffizi, the Grande Galerie and Salle de la Joconde (home to the Mona Lisa) stretch the length of Denon's first floor, flanked by French Romantic paintings. The second floor of Richelieu and Sully is devoted to Dutch and French painting. The Denon wing's minimalist galleries, which feature art from Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, were created as a sample for the Musée du Quai Branly.

Location: Rue de Rivoli, Paris, Île-de-France 75001

Website: https://www.louvre.fr/en