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Armchair Traveller

Tomb raider

Lee Langley

Thursday, 12th April 2007

A Nile cruise is not for wimps — not if you do it seriously: up before dawn, a quick breakfast, then off on the boat to the first tomb of the day. Deep underground, painted walls glowed with Pharaonic profiles, sinister bird-headed priests, rituals from the Book of the Dead. We shivered in our anoraks till the sun god showed his face as we headed for the temples. Some people cheated, retreating to deck recliners, basking in winter sun. But I was following in the footsteps of a hyper-energetic Frenchman.

If you fed the name Vivant Denon to a University Challenge team, most bright young things probably wouldn’t have a clue, despite the fact that this 18th-century courtier, artist, traveller, collector and libertine virtually created the Louvre as we know it today, filling the museum with treasures, mostly looted from the enemies of France. His name is carved on its façade.

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