After months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Louvre has reopened, giving art-lovers the chance to once again take in some of the world’s most famous works of art.
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After months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Louvre has reopened, giving art-lovers the chance to once again take in some of the world’s most famous works of art.
A winding queue of masked visitors could be seen inside the Parisian museum on Monday, waiting to set eyes on Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
The museum was shut, along with other tourist attractions, at the start of March as COVID-19 spread throughout France and beyond.
Now visitors can once again enter through the iconic pyramid, as long as they maintain a metre distance from others, and wear a mask at all times.
About 70% of the museum is open to visitors - around 45,000 square metres, containing 30,000 works of art.
One Belgian tourist, Zino Vandenbeaghen said the visit was “all good”.
"It's a bit like in Belgium in fact. You have to respect a distance of 1.5 meters (between people), wear a face mask, gloves as well if possible in shops. So it's all fine.”
Before the pandemic, as many as 50,000 people per day toured the Louvre in the busiest summer months.
The museum's president-director said the museum was expecting just 7,000 visitors on Monday.