Crowds at Vatican museums & Louvre

This item appears on page 4 of the March 2019 issue.

The Vatican is considering measures to reduce the number of visitors to the Vatican Museums, due to overcrowding and health issues.

More than 6 million people visit the museums each year, with up to 30,000 per day during the high season (March-October), when, according to guides, as many as 10 visitors faint each day in the non-air-conditioned corridors, occasionally suffering additional injuries.

• The most-visited museum in the world is the Louvre in Paris. The Louvre experienced a large bump in visitors in 2018, receiving more than 10 million, up from 8 million the year before, due, in part, to the release of a popular music video showing the celebrity couple BeyoncĂ© and Jay-Z in front of some of the Louvre's masterpieces.