this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 hours ago

Mass tourism is only a problem if you aren't in the business of catering to tourists.

Seems like the actual problem is wages, staffing, and working conditions. The problem is greed at the top. Big fucking surprise.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 hours ago

Maybe they shouldn’t aggregate so much world heritage into a single complex?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago

Oh no. Now where will I go to see stolen loot?

[–] [email protected] 78 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

The Louvre’s spontaneous strike erupted during a routine internal meeting, as gallery attendants, ticket agents and security personnel refused to take up their posts in protest over unmanageable crowds, chronic understaffing and what one union called “untenable” working conditions.

It’s rare for the Louvre to close its doors. It has happened during war, during the pandemic, and in a handful of strikes — including spontaneous walkouts over overcrowding in 2019 and safety fears in 2013. But seldom has it happened so suddenly, without warning, and in full view of the crowds.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Headline makes it sound like the Louvre closed forever. Turns out, it's just the French being French. They didn't even overturn a car and set it on fire in the parking lot.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago

Give it time, we'll get our fire.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 20 hours ago

Not even a single burning car? Shite party. I'm not going.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

That sucks, I had this on my bucket list, but now I don't know. Hope workers get what they want. I wonder why not have people make reservations and take only certain number of visitors a day?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Because that’s not how you maximize profits.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Nordic countries we visited: smaller museums (musea?) but free to enter. No profit there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Free‽ No profit‽‽

Where's the profit in that!?!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

unmanageable crowds

Oh wow. Even with timed entry

[–] [email protected] 54 points 21 hours ago (6 children)

Thousands and thousands of people line up every day to wait in long, slow moving lines just to get to the barrier around the Mona Lisa to photograph it.

The Mona Lisa might be the most reproduced image in all of history. And the people who get the opportunity to see it in person can only think to photograph it one more time.

It's almost if that were the point. Taking a selfie with Lisa is the correct way to experience this art. If your camera broke, there is no reason to wait on line just to what, see the painting?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

My experience visiting the Mona Lisa was being disappointed how small it was hanging on the wall, looking even smaller surrounded by all the protective glass, and then even smaller because of how far back the crowd has to stand.

That was a split second thought, interrupted by being aggressively pushed forward so that people behind me could get a better look with their cameras, while I'm pushing back, trying not to trample a tiny kid standing in front of me. Easily the worst part of my visit to France was seeing the Mona Lisa.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 17 hours ago

Pro tip, seek out the “Spanish Mona Lisa” which was produced by the same art team as the real Mona Lisa as one of its pro or trial pieces and you can get right up to it, nearly. Saw it at an expo in Shanghai and the family loved it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_(Prado)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

It's also one of the most disappointing tourist attractions, with the most common complaint is that it's smaller than most visitors imagined. It's like waiting in line to summit Everest. The experience is not as rewarding as knowing you've done it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I'd happily climb any of the 1000ft "peaks" around me over telling everyone how much money I spent to be here while slowly moving in line up to the top of what is now basically a trash dump.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Don't forget hiring sherpas to carry my shit up the mountain and help me not die.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

or when when you die from altitude sickness and you are left a frozen corpse, leaving all your trash there too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

On Mt Everest your body becomes an exhibit, that's more than most people can dream of.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

When I went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, I was in a big crowd huddled around it behind stanchions with two guards on either side. It's a cool painting, and it's cool to say I saw it in person I guess, but the museum itself is fucking HUGE. I don't think I even saw all of it that one day, and we were there for a few hours.

I took a picture of it through another guy's phone in front of me. He was about to take a picture, as he held up his phone for a good angle, and I snapped it as it was on his screen.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago

I heard somewhere that it would take a person 6-8 months to watch every exhibit in The Louvre.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

It is absolutely mind boggling. So much amazing art at the Louvre and the only thing people want to see is a small picture we have all seen hundreds of time.

[–] CosmicTurtle0 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It's no longer about seeing the small picture we've seen hundreds of times.

It's about showing their followers and friends on social media that they were physically there to take a picture of a portrait that everyone has seen hundreds of times.

Social media is killing our species.

[–] Aceticon 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Oh, I remember going to the Louvre well before Social Media and back then most people around the Mona Lisa were, just like nowadays, far more worried about taking pictures of it than actually just enjoying it.

IMHO, people always tended to be weird around famous shit and famous people.

It wasn't social media that made most people be like that. Most likely it's the reverse: social is successful because most people are like that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 19 hours ago

its incredible, and you get to enjoy the awesome works on the floors leading to the fake mona lisa in peace.

all the idiots beeline to the little chamber that can be skipped altogether (you can glimpse on the mini painting and the huge crowd from the grand hallway outside)

the museum also had nintendo switch audio guides with almost working gps tracking and some audios were actually interesting. rule of thumb: if they start with french names you never heard of its not getting better.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

Probably a lot of overlap with the type of people that spend hundreds of dollars to see a popular band play their most popular song everyone's heard several times.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

It's so annoying if you AREN'T there to take a picture of it. We were in Paris last year and went to the Musee d'Orsay but didn't go to the Louvre. We like to stand and appreciate the artwork, taking in the beauty of them. It was so hard to do with any painting even remotely famous, since there were lines of people pushing to the front to take the best possible picture of it (which has already been taken by pro photographers). They weren't even looking at the painting, just their phone's screen as they took the picture then walked away. I'm just standing still looking forward, and they would shoulder me aside to get a better photo then walk away. Other paintings just as pretty? Who cares, not famous.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

No one goes to the Louvre, it’s too crowded.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 19 hours ago

Straight out of Futurama:

"Did many people drive in new York city, Fry?"

"No way! There was too much traffic!"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

oh no. where will dan brown's hero have his adventures now?

[–] harrys_balzac 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

The secret chamber in Mount Rushmore.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

But... That's just the toilet, and it's not secret. In fact it's well signed to make sure people can find it.

I don't want to read the next book.