The underground Mona Lisa and the trouble with tourists

Visitors to the Louvre have dubbed the crowded experience 'torture' as famous landmarks suffer from overtourism

The Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum in Paris
As many as 25,000 people a day visit the 'Mona Lisa' at the Louvre in Paris and are allowed only 30 seconds to see it
(Image credit: Francois Le Diascorn / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Famous attractions across the globe are grappling with the problems of overtourism as the travel industry bounces back from the pandemic.

Venice last week introduced an entry fee for day-trippers, and now the world's most famous artwork may be moved to an underground room at the Louvre, while a town in Japan is planning to block views of Mount Fuji.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.