Like cattle in a chute we were stampeded toward the world's most famous painting.We had stepped around a corner as directed by a sign that read "Mona Lisa" and were caught in a river of humanity.
The chute was a marble hall, hot and dank, one of countless opulent passages in the world's largest palace and museum. It opened into a room full of digital equipment, recording what we calculate to be 10,000 bad pictures a minute of that crafty smile.
Roped off a good 30 feet away, many barely looked at the painting, so busy were they photographing themselves before it. We love to be in the presence of the famous.
The Louvre displays 30,000 paintings, but people are the big show.
(As always, click to enlarge.)
