The Louvre reopens, but there’s only one smile on show
THE Louvre museum in Paris reopened today but without the scrums for a selfie with the Mona Lisa and with scarcely a dozen people standing around the Venus de Milo.
The museum has been closed for four months due to the pandemic, a period in which it estimates it lost €40million (£36million) in revenue.
Many of the French capital’s museums had already opened, but the Louvre took time to install a number of measures to ensure visitor safety. It is only permitting 8,400 visitors per day, a huge reduction on the norm. “Over an average summer, we might get 30,000 to 40,000 visitors per day,” said a museum spokesman.
Under new regulations, visitors must book tickets online and reserve a time slot. All slots to visit today and tomorrow were sold out.
More than 800 Plexiglas panels were installed to protect administrative and security staff.
A one-way system was devised and all visitors were urged to respect social distancing and use hand sanitiser at the main entrance. Visitors were to wear face masks at all times – and any who attempted to remove their face masks for a selfie with the Mona Lisa would receive a polite yet firm rebuke from security staff.
“We cannot say how many visitors we lost during the coronavirus lockdown but 70 per cent of our market is from American and Asian tourists, particularly Chinese, and they have gone,” the spokesman said. However, the museum was anticipating a higher proportion of French visitors than normal.
Visitors will have access to 32,000 artworks, including themed rooms featuring Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, 19th-century French masterpieces and Napoleon III’S apartments.
Level two, however, featuring Northern European artwork, would remain closed to manage the flow of visitors.
For those who only want to see the Louvre’s highlights, the museum has introduced a free “mini discovery” tour throughout the summer that runs every half an hour.