At any given time, there are 35,000 works on show in the Louvre collection. You could spend an entire vacation trying to see all of it and still only scratch the surface. If, however, you only have a couple of hours, our Louvre Highlights Tour is the perfect way to get the best from your time.

After meeting your Art Historian guide in front of the Louvre, with a group of no more than 19 other people, your first of port-of-call will be Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Your Skip-the-Line Highlights Tour will then feature sculptures by Michelangelo and Antonio Canova; classic paintings from the French Romantics like Delacroix's Victory Leading the People and Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa; the iconic statue of the Venus de Milo; and even France's crown jewels.

Over the course of your tour, your guide will give you the context and background you'll need to understand what you're seeing and how to appreciate its beauty and importance. You'll hear behind-the-scenes stories like how a solitary worker managed to steal the Mona Lisa; and how a story of shipwreck and cannibalism on the front page of a newspaper became one of France's most beloved paintings.

As you explore, you'll also experience the full splendor of the Louvre as a building. Originally built as a defensive fortress and once a seat for French royalty, this enormous palace hosted grand balls and all types of royal affairs before it was a museum. As your tour continues, your guide will bring your surroundings to life with stories of the kings and queens whose footsteps you're walking in.

This short but very sweet tour distills the Louvre Museum collection into a very manageable experience so you can be in and out without having to worry about anything but enjoying the art.

• Louvre Museum

• Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"

• Italian sculptures

• Classic Greek art rooms

• French painting galleries