Atlantica - 01.11.2002, Page 23

HARD AT WORK: SELLING SIDEWALK SKETCHES ALONG THE SEINE RIVER.
SPEED LOUVRE
Rushing from monument to monument to museum to museum, one
forgets that people actually live and work in Paris. Naturally, this
buzz of life thrives around the Seine river. Visiting the neighbour-
hoods sprawling out from the river is one way to organise a trip
through Paris. At the moment, I’m headed to the Louvre.
This is my third trip to Paris and the closest I’ve come to going
inside the world’s best museum is that I once took a picture of the
postmodern glass pyramid (designed by I. M. Pei), located at the
museum’s entrance. This time, I’m not going to miss my opportuni-
ty.
Most guidebooks recommend taking a week to properly explore the
Louvre. I’ve got about an hour. First stop: the Mona Lisa.
“I didn’t realise it was so small,” Candice Adams, a college student
from San Clemente, California, says about the most famous paint-
ing in the world. Adams, who travelled to Paris with her mother,
brother and sister, has just seen Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece for
the first time. “I don’t get it. Compared to the other paintings in
here, it’s not that great.”
Maybe so, but the line of tourists politely pushing their way up to
the portly-looking woman whose eyes follow your every move
seem to disagree. Pressing against the rope that cordons off the
painting, hoards of tourists act like paparazzi, snapping picture after
picture. I half-expect Miss Mona to blink from the explosions of
flash. After a few souvenir shots of my own, I walk down the corri-
dor of the Denon Wing, checking out the few contemporary artists
sitting on their stools painting replica paintings on their canvases.
With upwards of six million visitors per year rushing down this very
A T L A N T I C A 21
PARIS
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