By Maria Camila Perez

Last week I visited the Louvre museum in Paris with a high tech tour guide. It wasn’t my first time there, but it was my most enjoyable visit, thanks to a new multi-media gadget, the XP-vision, that was introduced last November.

Instead of wandering aimlessly in search of the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo, I could actually spend time savoring the collection. The audio guide, which rents for 6 euros, is about the size of a notepad, with a little screen that highlights details of the museum’s treasures.

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These pocket guides make the vast building - which measures more than 5 kilometers long - accessible and convenient with customized tours for adults and children. Last Wednesday, I chose the master piece tour, which took about an hour and a half to follow a trail of the museum’s most famous works of art.

My visit was more personal and emotional as I listened to music and presentations of art experts. And I discovered places that I would never have noticed without the guide. While visitors were flocking around the Mona Lisa, I could step back and study her expression in greater detail on the screen. I discovered that the Mona Lisa is sitting on a wooden chair in a terrace with an imaginary and a real landscape behind her.

If you want to prepare a tour in advance, visit the Web site, www.monguide.louvre.fr. For children, there’s a tour of the museum’s Egyptian exhibit narrated by an eloquent Sphinx and there’s also a tour specially designed for handicapped visitors.

The Louvre is offering the device as part of its outreach to a broader, diverse group of visitors, with most of its tourists coming from abroad. The guide comes in seven languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, German, and Japanese.

The gadget’s most handy feature is its virtual map. There’s no way of getting lost. The screen simply pinpoints where you are and steers you to the final destination every step of the way to Mona Lisa’s smile.