June 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, dressed in white slacks, navy-blue polo shirt and walking shoes, looked like any other tourist as he gazed at the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt.

“Pretty neat, huh?” he said to a bystander as he walked down a long slope toward the Great Sphinx.

Were it not for the herd of reporters charting his every step, “I’d get on a camel,” the president said, gesturing toward four of the saddled beasts lolling under a scorching North African sun.

As Obama concludes his fourth trip abroad as president, he has added to his portfolio, playing First Tourist in a world that has grown increasingly hostile to the United States.

From Ottawa to Paris, his often unexpected appearances win the attention of the local citizenry while serving up a sharp contrast to the style of his predecessor, who rarely took in the sights and sounds of the countries he visited.

“Barack Obama is both America’s first tourist and an universal ambassador,” said Allan Lichtman, a political history professor at American University in Washington. He’s “a persuader who is attempting to restore a foreign policy of diplomacy, positive example, and the speaking of the truth.”

‘Student of History’

Obama, a self-described “student of history,” was particularly enthusiastic about visiting the pyramids, aides said. While inside a small underground tomb at Giza, he pointed to a figure on a wall covered with hieroglyphics and said:

“Hey that looks like me. Look at those ears!”

In Paris yesterday the president, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, took a sightseeing excursion past the Champs Elysees and the Place de la Concorde, across the Seine river and through the Latin quarter as bystanders cheered and applauded their motorcade.

The Obama family also toured the cathedral of Notre Dame, where they climbed to the top of the landmark. Obama returns to Washington today. The first lady and the girls will return later.

“There’s obviously a lot of work to be done on these trips,” said White House senior adviser David Axelrod. Such cultural excursions are “fascinating to him and the visits are symbolically important.”

By paying homage to his host nation’s cultural shrines and institutions -- such as Obama’s visit June 4 to the Sultan Hassan mosque in Cairo, one of the largest in the Muslim world, or the refurbished Church of Our Lady in Dresden, Germany, June 5 -- the president shows he is attuned to others’ national sensibilities.

Cultural Diversity

“Obama’s excursions reinforce a key message: the importance of acknowledging and respecting cultural diversity and local history,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “They also help communicate a brand of U.S. engagement that is about broad social contact, not just the stuff of high diplomacy.”

Obama’s tour of Buchenwald June 5 provided an opportunity for the president to see the former Nazi concentration camp that his uncle helped liberate in 1945 -- a place he had been hearing stories about “since I was a boy,” he said.

Yet, it also served as an occasion to send a message to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a deception and called for the destruction of Israel.

And it was an opportunity for German Chancellor Angela Merkel “to say a particular word of gratitude” to Obama for visiting the camp.

Starting Anew

“We owe the fact that we were given the opportunity after the war to start anew,” Merkel said, “to a sacrifice made in blood of the United States of America and of all those who stood by your side as allies or fighters in the resistance.”

The Democratic president and first lady were criticized by the Republican Party last weekend when, two days before General Motors Corp. filed for bankruptcy, they flew to New York for dinner and a Broadway show.

Partaking in the local sights and sounds are “a part of the job,” Axelrod said. “I don’t think people begrudge him for taking time off.”

In April, Obama paid a visit to Ataturk’s Tomb in Ankara to honor modern Turkey’s founder; later in Istanbul, he toured several cultural shrines.

At the Hagia Sophia Museum, an architectural landmark on the Bosphorus strait, he listened intently, often nodding, as the museum director talked.

‘Spectacular’

“Spectacular,” Obama said upon emerging from the Byzantine church, transformed into a mosque after Istanbul fell to the Ottomans in 1453.

Next he toured the adjacent Blue Mosque in his stocking feet.

And no matter how the president spends his time, there are questions about his priorities. He was asked whether the relatively quick visit through Europe meant that the continent was not a priority.

“What it means is that I have a very tough schedule,” Obama replied. “I would love nothing more than to have a leisurely week in Paris, stroll down the Seine, take my wife out to a nice meal, have a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens,” he said, smiling. “Those days are over, for the moment.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Edwin Chen in Paris at echen32@bloomberg.net; Julianna Goldman in Paris at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: June 6, 2009 19:43 EDT