The Louvre is magnificent. It's also, on most days, one of the busiest places in Paris. If what you're craving is not a famous painting but a quiet room, the city has many smaller museums where you can look slowly, sit on a bench and hear nothing but footsteps.
Here are seven to try. Opening hours and exhibitions change, so check before you go.
1. Musée de la Vie romantique (9th)
A green-shuttered house at the end of a cobbled lane, once home to the painter Ary Scheffer, where George Sand and Chopin were among the visitors. Small rooms, portraits, and a garden with a tea room in the warmer months. The permanent collection is free.
2. Musée Zadkine (6th)
The former home and studio of the sculptor Ossip Zadkine, hidden near the Luxembourg Gardens. Wooden and stone figures inside, and a small garden of sculptures outside. A secret world a few steps from a busy street.
3. Musée Bourdelle (15th)
The studios of the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, with enormous plaster casts in a hall full of light, and a garden of bronzes. Peaceful and surprisingly grand.
4. Musée national Eugène-Delacroix (6th)
Delacroix's last apartment and studio, on the tiny Place de Furstenberg. Paintings, sketches, his palette, and a little garden.
5. Musée Cognacq-Jay (3rd)
An elegant eighteenth-century collection in a Marais mansion: paintings, furniture and delicate objects. Free permanent collection, intimate rooms.
6. Musée Nissim de Camondo (8th)
A private mansion near Parc Monceau, preserved as it was, filled with eighteenth-century French decorative arts. Beautiful, and quietly heartbreaking once you learn the family's story.
7. Musée Gustave Moreau (9th)
The house and studio of the Symbolist painter, with a spectacular spiral staircase and walls covered floor to ceiling with paintings and drawings. Mysterious and calm.
How to visit a quiet museum
Go early on a weekday. Sit down in every room for at least a minute. Choose one work to spend ten minutes with. Leave before you're tired, and find a café nearby to let the visit settle.
More quiet places
The Digital subscription is full of places like these, along with recommendations on books, opera, music and exhibitions, at least one video each month, photo stories and the digital edition of "(meditating) On Art". A map of the city's calmer corners.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi