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[da]

Today had an amusing Globe and Mail piece on that Da Vinci Book.

Seems the caretakers of French churches and museums are getting pretty frustrated at the sheep-like tourists wearing a tread around Europe to each of the "artifacts" mentioned in the book.

Every few minutes, a knot of tourists is led at speed by their guides through Saint-Sulpice's great west doors. They beeline to the gnomon -- the 11-metre-high, white marble obelisk in the north transept -- oblivious to light, organ, frescoes, chapels.

[...Father Roumanet's sign next to the obelisk] reads, in part: "Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent bestselling novel, this is not the vestige of a pagan temple. No such temple ever existed in this place. It was never called a 'Rose Line.' No mystical notion can be derived from this instrument of astronomy except to acknowledge that God the Creator is the master of time."

Also, over 1,000 copies of the Da Vinci Code left behind on the Eurostar Chunnel train, according to The Telegraph; "by far the most common item left" in the last 18 months. Most are paperback copies in English, though some are in Dutch, Spanish and German.

Comments

[kraig.livejournal.com]

That doesn't strike me as being a terribly new phenomenon - I recall going to the Louvre with my family on our European vacation, and while the Mona Lisa room was packed, the rest of the museum was fairly dead. I walked right up to the Venus de Milo, for instance.

On the one hand, as you say, cultural sheep. On the other hand, they're spending money, so what do the caretakers care? Would they rather nobody came by? Gotta pay the bills somehow.