A Tour Of The Louvre

The Louvre didn't need any publicity from Dan Brown, merci beaucoup. The majestic pile at Paris' heart has had its share of mysterious characters, strange tales and odd occurrences in a long career from medieval castle to the world's most popular museum. At left, a cyclist passes the museum along the Seine's right bank. Keep clicking for a tour of the Louvre and some of its treasures, including the "naughty bits."

A view of the massive southern wing of the Louvre in Paris, with the glass pyramid entrance, taken April 4, 2006. The modern I.M. Pei-designed Pyramid leads underground and on to the main entrance of the museum.

Another day at the Louvre begins with a steady stream of visitors entering from the pyramid entrance on April 4, 2006. The Louvre, once a royal palace complete with dungeon and moat, hosted a record 7.55 million visitors last year, the most of any art museum in the world.

Visitors tour the ornately decorated Apollo gallery of the Louvre. Opened to the public in 1793, this oldest of museums is still evolving. Future plans include a Department of Islamic Art and new exhibit space for 18th-century decorative arts.

Many visitors hustle off to see the Mona Lisa so fast that they miss entire wings of the Louvre. Among the French masterpieces on display is this massive oil painting, "Coronation of Napoleon and Empress Josephine" by French artist Jacques-Louis David.

A view of the room of drawings at the Louvre in Paris on April 4, 2006. The Louvre has 120,000 drawings, including a number that have never been opened simply because there are too many to restore.

Behind the scenes: Andre Le Prat, a member of the Louvre drawings department, unrolls a sketch that has not been seen for centuries, in the museum's drawing restoration workshop, in a photo taken on April 4, 2006.

A drawing hangs on a wall of the drawing restoration workshop at the Louvre in a photo taken on April 4, 2006.

Louvre tour guide Jean-Manuel Traimond loves what he calls the "naughty bits" in great art, and has created a popular tour of his favorites. Here, he gestures towards "Le Centaure Enlacant une Bacchante" by Johan Tobias Sergel, a German-born Swedish Neoclassical sculptor, on April 4, 2006.

Another favorite of the "naughty" tour: This sensual maiden, when seen from another angle, is revealed to be the gender-bending god Hermaphroditus. Visitors tour a sculpture room at the Louvre Museum in Paris, April 4, 2006.

Visitors view massive paintings by 17th-century French artist Nicolas Poussin at the Louvre in Paris, April 4, 2006.

Despite the wealth of art, follow any crowd in the Louvre and you'll wind up right here. Visitors view Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in this April 5, 2005, photo. (Here's a hint: Signs throughout the museum point the way to "La Giaconda," the French name for the painting.) Recently moved for her own protection, she now gazes at the crowd from behind a pane of unbreakable glass.

Here she is. The current home of the Mona Lisa is the Salle des Etats, which was closed in 2001 for renovation into a suitable home for Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of the woman with the enigmatic smile. The 9,000 square-foot room can accommodate the large crowds who come to see the picture. The 500-year-old painting hangs on a false wall about two-thirds into the room to eliminate the risk of moisture damage.

A visitor looks at "Virgin, Jesus and Saint Anne," by Leonardo da Vinci. Ironically, visitors bent on finding Mona Lisa can walk right by other masterpieces, including this one. Renaissance works hang in profusion along the Grande Gallerie leading to the Mona Lisa. (It's the same gallery where Dan Brown's fictional curator meets his fate in "The Da Vinci Code.)

A reproduction of "The Young Woman's Head," a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo Da Vinci's painting "Madonna of the Rocks" is in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre.

Speaking of famous ladies of the Louvre, the Venus de Milo lives there, too. Tourists walk around the marble statue, a symbol of grace despite the lost arms, that dates from about 130 B.C.

He's no Venus de Milo, but he's a sight to see. Outside the Louvre, where mimes and other street artists gather, tourists watch a mime made up as a classical statue.

Part of the museum fa

As night falls in Paris, red-gold sunbeams pour into the Pyramid while tiny lights flicker in the Cour Carree courtyard and the sculptures on the Louvre's fa