Paris may look magical at night, but come 3am there’s usually very little to do in the city centre. Not so from February 21 to February 24, when you can only go and visit the mother-flippin’ Louvre at any time of day you like.
The museum’s hit ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ exhibition is coming to an end, and tickets are sold out. But in a first for the museum, visitors can book an after-hours slot between 9pm and 8.30am across the show’s final weekend. That means the Louvre will be open continuously from 9am on Friday to 5.45pm on Monday – that’s more than 80 hours straight.
Tickets for the one-off night visits are free and will allow more than 30,000 extra visitors to see the exhibition, which celebrates the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance master’s death and centres on the Louvre’s own collection of his paintings and drawings. And yes, that includes the Mona Lisa.
Reservations must be made online from Tuesday, February 11. This might be your last chance to catch that enigmatic smile in the dead of night – and, let’s be honest, what could be more magical than that?
