Trever and I have been to Paris four times and we’ve never been to the Louvre. I don’t even feel bad about it, the amount of humanity in such a small space gives me anxiety just thinking about it. The world gets so mad when you tell them you don’t want to go to the Louvre…get over it world!
However, there is a museum on the opposite side of the Tuileries gardens from the Louvre called the Orangerie. It’s mostly impressionist artists and much smaller and more manageable. If you like to move quickly through museums you can go from 5:00 until it closes at 6:00 and pay close to half the price, or you can go free on the first sunday of every month. On the top floor of the Orangerie there are several Water Lilies studies by Monet. The gallery rooms are huge white ovals and the ceiling is white and translucent, somehow. When the clouds move over the sun and back off it, the light in the room completely changes and it changes the look of the paintings constantly. So skip the Louvre, go to the Orangerie, jog through the other galleries and sit in the Water Lilies gallery until they kick you out. Watch the colors change. Take it in. You won’t regret it.