Napoleon's Apartments at the Louvre

The Napoleon Apartments are a part of the Louvre. If you have tickets to the Louvre, you can visit the apartments which are in the Richelieu Wing.

You can only enter each wing of the Louvre once on a ticket, so if you used up your ticket on the Richelieu wing before visiting the other wings you might not be able to get back in to see them but otherwise -- if the tour finishes there or there is an interior way of moving between wings (sometimes there is) you should be able to see them. Note that these were the apartments of Napoleon III not of the well known Emperor Napoleon. So second empire.

Thanks - I'll see if I can find out if the tour includes that wing. Interesting that you can only go each wing once.

I didn't know which Napoleon it was - I'm sure it would be grand either way.

Before Chinese tour groups abused the system by running many tours through on one set of tickets, you could come and go all day on a ticket to the Louvre. they would run a group through, collect their tickets, then run another group through etc. We would go in the morning then go get lunch and spend some time in the Tuilleries and then head back into the Louvre in the afternoon. Now because of the way ticketing works at the Louvre with entries not to the whole museum but to the wings, they enforce the 'one visit' rule by only allowing entry to each wing once. Because of the layout of the building there has to be ticket control at each wing.

There were other ways to deal -- they could have had special tickets for tour groups that prevented reuse but instead chose this policy that punishes dedicated individual travelers who were not cheating the system.

Is there a "better" wing to explore - more to see - if you are left to see more of only one wing after a group tour?

That depends on what you like and what you're in the mood for -- I've mentioned before that the mobilier (furniture) section is an Antiques Roadshow fan's dream, and rarely crowded. The ancient near eastern collections also marvelous but a little busier. If you are into something in particular, like Roman coinage or Byzantine mosaics, search for those ahead online to do your planning.

vegaschristmas,
Having visited the Napoleon apartments (accidentally) in 2017, I wouldn't go back. They were underwhelming, and I wish I could get the time back to use in other parts of the Louvre. I definitely wouldn't pay for a tour upgrade to see them.
Saying that, I also prefer not to have a tour of the Louvre at all, whether two hours or four hours. I usually just refer to a plan of the Louvre, pick out what I want to see, and try to map out my route to avoid backtracking. The hour or two spent in planning enhances my visit and I have more energy as well. And one wing per visit is more than enough in a day!
Have a wonderful time, and if you spend a lot of time there, give yourself a break and have a drink or snack at one of the cafes there.
Bonne chance!

Thanks. Good to know that unless I’m really interested that the apartment sounds better that it might be.

How does it work to take a break/grab a bite if I can’t go back into the wing?

I’m assuming my little tour would visit each wing. Are there places for a break in each wing?

Art and culture are getting complicated.

I believe each wing has more than one place for a meal or a snack. It's been 7 years though since I last went. The Louvre website should have that info.

Thanks - too bad I wouldn't be able to go to one of the nicer sit down restaurants outside. Oh well.

Thanks for all the help.

Your tour guide should be able to point you in the right direction from where they end. It’s doable to get from wing to wing without having to go back out to the pyramid area although in one or two instances you have to go down a floor to connect.

I think the apartments are quite interesting. In that wing you also have the Old Masters on the 2nd floor (one above the apartments) including Rembrandt and Vermeer. On the same level of the apartments is the Angelina cafe which is right across from my favorite object, the Vase of Alienor d’Aquitaine.

The good thing about the Richelieu wing is there are escalators!

Thanks
I’ve asked the tour company where they end. I’m sure we can find lots to see no matter where we end up. Nice that at least one wing has a cafe inside.

If you want to see Napoleon's real apartment (the emperor Napoléon 1st, not Napoléon III), you have to go to the invalids. :))

I was at the Louvre in January 2023 and I really don’t understand how the system of only accessing each wing once works. I don’t recall seeing any signs about it there or when we reserved our tickets. Perhaps I missed something.

At any rate, the wings connect internally. We left the ticketed area for lunch (within the pyramid) and reentered after lunch with no problem. We happen to have entered through a different wing each time, but those entrances are all so close within the pyramid that it isn’t a big deal to choose a different one. We definitely went back and forth between the wings within the ticketed area and at one point chose to take the long way around to avoid leaving the ticketed area and possibly running into a problem.

To the extent you can, I recommend planning your visit geographically within the galleries. We mostly ordered our visit by our viewing priorities and did too much backtracking. It was a long day.

Thanks. Glad you were able to go back and forth between the wings.

Never thought about visiting the Invalids. Might have to check it out. Always too much to see.

"I didn't know which Napoleon it was."

Napoleon III was also Emperor of the French like his uncle, Napoleon I. The reign of Napoleon III came to an end when he was taken prisoner at the battle of Sedan along with the rest of his surviving army, ie, 100,000 troops.

If you want to see a Napoleon III chateau, it's in Compiegne. I saw it in 1997 with the chateau's guided tour

Thanks for the tips.

If you're interested in Napoleon I, the place to visit in the Paris area is the chateau de Malmaison where he lived with Josephine. You can get the Metro to La Defense and a bus from there stops very close to the chateau. Note that the chateau closes for an hour at lunchtime.

Thanks. That sounds great to see. Hopefully sometime I’ll have time for bigger trips like that. This time I think we will stick with what’s in Paris.

Malmaison is in a suburb. An easy half day.

https://www.napoleon.org/en/magazine/places/national-museum-of-the-chateau-de-malmaison/

I don’t know the status now, but when we were there back in late May, the apartments were closed for refurbishment.
ETA: Never mind, I see that they are now re-opened. We missed them by a month! I saw them back in 2005 and thought they were really spectacular.