Travelore News: Paris Overtourism Heats Up At Notre Dame And The Louvre

The latest symbols of overtourism are two iconic Paris attractions known worldwide. Notre Dame Cathedral has been overwhelmed by visitors since reopening after a destructive fire and the Louvre museum, home of the “Mona Lisa,” is a crumbling gilded palace, forced to close its doors due to crowds.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Since the December 2024 re-opening of Notre Dame Cathedral, the visitor experience has changed. While always a popular attraction for visitors to Paris, visits were more manageable prior to the fire of 2019.

Crowds have grown considerably, creating long lines of people standing in the forecourt outside the entrance. The average number of daily visitors to Notre Dame currently stands at 29,000, a nearly 20% increase since the re-opening. Depending on the day of the week and time of day, wait times range from 15 minutes to more than two hours.

Strategies for shortening wait time include going first thing in the morning or booking a 30-minute free tour with a timed entry ticket reservation online or via the app. Slots for party sizes up to six people are only available a few hours prior to entry and sell out quickly. Opening times at Notre Dame are normally 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and until 10 p.m. on Thursdays. The Saturday and Sunday hours are 8:15 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Three daily masses are celebrated at 8 a.m., 12 p.m., and 6 p.m.

Louvre Museum

At Musée du Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, the doors were shuttered on at least one day last week, prompted by exhausted staff refusing to take up their positions.

CNN reports, “The Louvre welcomed 8.7 million visitors last year — more than double what its infrastructure was designed to accommodate. Even with a daily cap of 30,000, staff say the experience has become a test of endurance, with too few rest areas, limited bathrooms, and summer heat magnified by the pyramid’s greenhouse effect.”

“Roughly 20,000 people a day squeeze into the Salle des États, the museum’s largest room, just to snap a selfie with Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic woman behind protective glass.”

Tickets are required. Tours ae available in Engish, French, Spanish, and Italian. The Louvre hours are Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Extended hours to 9 p.m. are on Wednesday and Friday. Ticket prices are 22 euros, with free admission offered with proof of I.D. to everyone under age 18 and those under age 26 as a resident of the EEA (EU countries plus Norway, Iceland, and Lichtenstein). Additional free admssions are extended to disabled persons plus one, certain art instructors, and journalists with required credentials. Free admission to all is offered on the first Friday of the month after 6 p.m., except during July and August.

https://libertepress.com/author/laurie-jo-miller-farr/

Louvre Pyramid Painted For First Time In Controversial Exhibit

Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto's art work decorates the Louvre museum's iconic glass pyramid, in Paris, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. Jacques Brinon / AP Photo

Contributed By THOMAS ADAMSON, AP

An Italian artist decorated the Louvre museum’s glass pyramid Wednesday for the first time in the iconic monument’s history, in a protest against capitalism. The artwork, a huge three-looped infinity sign made of mirrors, faces due west onto France’s business district, La Defense.

Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of the world’s leading conceptual artists, covered one panel of the pyramid with the reflective symbol that’s meant as a defiant political gesture: Politicians and society must look at follies of excess that led to the global financial crisis.

It had spectators gawping — some in awe, others in confusion.

“It’s fantastic. It’s like an eye looking out onto what Paris has become: finance, greed,” one spectator, Fabrice Bing, said.

Another onlooker, Anthony Cuvillier, was less certain: “I don’t know what it means, but it definitely looks cool.”

Pistoletto, one of the main exponents of “Arte Povera,” an influential movement that uses poor and everyday materials in art to protest against consumerism, has no doubt as to his art’s message.

“Politicians should look at themselves in the mirror, and learn to take responsibility for this terrible mess and think of the infinite future ahead for humanity,” he told The Associated Press.

Pistoletto is the first artist the Louvre has invited to work on the outside of the pyramid, the large glass and metal structure, designed by architect I. M. Pei, that was commissioned nearly 30 years ago — to great controversy — by former President Francois Mitterrand.

The installation continues deep inside the museum in more than a dozen separate works that the artist has “hidden” among the sprawling classical antiquities, made from mirrors and secondhand rags.

“It’s a mystery. The public is asked to come on a treasure hunt,” said curator Marie-Laure Bernadac, who agreed that the works will appeal to the many tourists who still come and see the pyramids because of the mysterious associations from Dan Brown’s best-selling book “The Da Vinci Code.”

But the works also have their fair dose of humor.

One work near the “Mona Lisa,” consists of mirror with an image of a tourist taking a photo.

“I’m also poking fun… I’m trying to say that people don’t look with their eyes any more, they just consume and take photos of the Mona Lisa because it’s famous. I’m trying to make people think,” Pistoletto said.

One of the strongest works is a marble statue of Venus, being pushed back by a gargantuan heap of rags. Pistoletto said it was a metaphor for how all the refuse in the world has cluttered and polluted nature.

“They’re secondhand rags, but they’re all very well washed,” he joked. “Don’t forget, this is the Louvre.”

Pistoletto’s “Year 1, Heaven on Earth” will run until Sept. 2.