The structure of the Louvre is itself an extraordinary monument and an important facet of Paris's history and architecture. The collections inside are so extensive that visitors there could literally spend months of morning-to-night exploration without seeing half of what is available. This Paris Museum Tour therefore only scratches the surface.

Our Paris museum tour begins with a short exterior tour of the Louvre buildings, from where the 12^th century dungeon once stood at one end, to its phantom Tuileries Palace at the other, over six hundred years of continuous construction. We enter the Louvre Museum through I.M. Pei’s ingenious pyramid, and have a look at some of the museum’s most famous residents: the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. You will also have time to visit a section of the Louvre Museum of your own choice.

This Paris Museum Tour then crosses the Seine River, over to the 19^th century railway station so imaginatively converted into the present Orsay Museum, which houses one of the world's finest collections of Impressionist art. We will first visit a section that so many visitors miss, on the ground floor, where you will see a rich cache of works of Degas, Bazile, Manet and Monet, among others. Our Paris Museum Tour then takes a lunch break at the museum’s restaurant, one of the most beautifully decorated in the city, with its turn of the century decorations, which survive from the days when the same restaurant served the original 19^th century railway hotel.

After lunch, this Paris Luxury Tour completes its visit of the Orsay Museum’s Impressionist collection on the upper floor, when we leave the Orsay Museum for yet another extraordinary Impressionist collection at the Marmottan Museum on the western edge of the city. There this Paris Museum Tour visits a collection of no less than 150 works of Claude Monet, not to mention a collection of, among others, Boudin, Caillebotte, Degas, Guillaumin, Jongkind, Manet, Morisot, Pissarro, Rodin and Renoir works on the first floor (but currently replaced by a magnificent exposition of Camille Claudel sculptures until March 31, 2006).

The sweep of Monet representation at the Marmottan, the world’s largest collection of works of the master, staggers one’s senses. It includes his Le Havre caricatures, works painted on the Normandy coast (including “Impression, sunrise” which gave Impressionism its name), railway stations, portraits, scenes from Argenteuil, Vetheuil, Paris, London, Rouen, Norway, Italy, and an amazing series of irises, water-lilies and roses at Giverny---from 1857 to his death in 1926.

Paris Luxury Tours has researched and designed this tour to provide its clients with an overview of what is available in three famous Paris museums. Far from being an exhaustive Paris Museum Tour, it provides a relaxed and enjoyable day tour of Paris Museums that will whet your appetite for French art and entice you to come back for more of the city’s treasures. It is led by a guide with extensive knowledge of its themes, who will drive you in a comfortable upscale vehicle from one location to the next.