Musée d’Orsay Museum: a Guided Tour Makes the Experience Even Better
📍 Musée d’Orsay, Paris
📆 October 2025
📒 Paris Field Notes
🎟️ Get Your Guide Tour + Tickets: Paris: Musée d’Orsay Guided Tour with Options
If you’re planning a visit to the Musée d’Orsay museum, a guided tour is one of the best ways to see the Impressionist masterpieces, skip the long lines, and understand the stories behind the paintings you’ve seen your whole life.
Our guide, Cristina, was fantastic.
What to Expect at the Musée d’Orsay Museum
- It’s an historic railway station and the lighting, details, and building architecture are gorgeous
- A beautiful Impressionist collection of artworks from artists including Monet, Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir
- It’s a lot smaller than the Louvre, but we still spent several hours exploring
- We loved having lunch in the upstairs dining area! There is a fancier area, too, that I’d like to try on our next visit.
Photo Gallery
Why We Booked a Guided Tour
I love booking guided tours because the guides are knowledgeable, know what to point out, know where to go, and can answer questions. The large museums and historical buildings like Versailles are massive and you’ll get lost without a guide. Plus, it’s just a more intimate and educational experience with an expert!
- Skip-the-line entry
- Small group, easy to hear and follow with the headphones
- Our guide’s stories changed how we saw the art
Highlights From Our Musée d’Orsay Guided Tour
Cristina shared they change the exhibits and layouts of the paintings weekly at the museum! Some of the artworks stay – but they may be in a different location – and others may rotate in and out. The museum is focused on impressionist artwork and includes –
- Monet — Water lilies + Paris scenes
- Van Gogh — emotional, vivid self-portraits
- Degas — the dancers
- Manet, Renoir, Cézanne — early modern art explained
- The Great Hall — wow moment of the museum
- Iconic clock window — photos + views of Paris. There was a line to take photos… obvlivious me went right on up to take photos before I realized people were patiently waiting in line to snap photos 🤦♀️
How to Book Musée d’Orsay Tickets
When we arrived for our tour in the morning the line to get into the museum was wrapped around the building. Because we booked a guided tour, we already had tickets and got to skip the line. I HIGHLY recommend getting the tour.
Is a Musée d’Orsay Guided Tour Worth It? (Spoiler: Yes.)
- Yes, for the skip-the-line benefit alone
- Made the museum feel approachable
- Great first-time visitors
- You still have time to explore on your own after
A guided tour of the Musée d’Orsay museum helped us appreciate the art, understand the artists, and enjoy the museum without the stress of navigating it on our own. If you’re planning your Paris itinerary, this is a 10/10 experience worth booking.
More Paris!
➡️ Read our full Paris in the Fall girls trip adventure + itinerary
📸 Photos snapped with the Fuji x100vi, video mostly with the Osmo Pocket 3 (the best travel video cam!) Read all my favorite travel cameras
