Introduction
Since there was such a level of interest in Dan Brown's book "The da Vinci Code", I thought I would see which locations I had visited and photographed. You can use Amazon's web site to search for references to locations in the book, and read excerpts about them. Below are some short excerpts (all references to page numbers below are from the hardback edition of the book).
Locations
Paris
Louvre
The Glass Sign in front of the Louvre Museum in Paris
This photo was taken in 1994 while I was standing behind the glass sign in front of the Pyramid which forms the entrance to the Louvre, as mentioned in my book Net Traveller. At the time I noticed the passionate rationality of the design of the public buildings and facilities of France. On a later trip I visited UNESCO's Paris office, near the near the Eiffel Tower.
- Louvre: 57 pages, on Page 17:
"... could now see the monolithic Renaissance palace that had become the most famous art museum in the world. Musee du Louvre. Langdon felt a familiar tinge of wonder as his eyes made a futile attempt to absorb the entire mass of ..."
- La Pyramide (Louvre Pyramid): 7 pages, on Page 21:
"... severity in all matters. Langdon followed the captain down the famous marble staircase into the sunken atrium beneath the glass pyramid. As they descended, they passed between two armed Judicial Police ... trepidation . Fache's presence was anything but welcoming, and the Louvre itself had an almost sepulchral aura at this hour. The staircase, like the aisle of a dark movie theater, was ..."
- La Pyramide Inversee (inverted Pyramid shaped skylight in the Louvre): 3 pages , on Page 22:
"... Fache scribbled some notes in a little book. As they walked, Langdon caught a glimpse of the Louvre's lesser-known pyramid-La Pyramide Inversee-a huge inverted skylight that hung from the ceiling like a stalactite in an adjoining section of the entresol. Fache ..."
Other Items
Apart from locations, another other item from the book, I happen to have photos of:
Smart Car
Langdon and Sophie (the two main characters of the book) escape from the Louvre in Paris in a Mercedes Smart Car (Page 137):
"... Langdon and Sophie dashed out of the bulkhead into the Paris night. As they ran across the plaza to Sophie's car, Langdon could hear police sirens wailing in the distance. "That's ... inside the museum. It was large enough to swallow their Smart- Car in a single gulp. Fortunately, Sophie decided on the more conventional route, jamming the wheel hard to the right, ..."
Actual Smart cars were used for shooting the film (photo of the rig is available):
Five Smart cars were modified for the shoot by father-son stunt coordinators Remy and Dominique Julienne. Some cars could accommodate a three-camera setup. "They had built a sort of go-car, taking the body and engine of the Smart car and building a different frame that was extended further," says Totino. "We could put platforms on the side of it, which meant we didn't have to tow the Smart car. It could actually drive through the traffic. It appeared as though the actors were driving when there was actually a driver outside the car. And I mounted three cameras on it. It was fantastic."
From: "The Da Vinci Code, shot by Salvatore Totinio, brings a worldwide best-seller to the big screen", by Patricia Thomson, American Cinematographer, June 2006
Smart police car
Perhaps the Paris police should have been equipped like the NSW police in Sydney who had a Smart Police Car. In January 2005 I saw a police car outside the Police station at Sydney Central railway station. Nothing unusual in this, except it was a Mercedes Smart Car and photographed it. It was metallic blue, with "Police" across the front and a checked blue and white band along the front mudguards. The car was for PR purposes, not everyday policing. But while such cars might look silly on wide Australian or USA streets, and may look a novelty in the movie of the the da Vinci Code, they are an everyday item, and ideal, for narrow European streets. A couple of years later the NSW Police Credit Union contacted me and asked to use the photo for their newsletter.
ps: If it is of interest I could dig out photos of Rome, where I stayed in a Convent and attended a wedding in 1994 (the bride and groom where blessed by the Pope at the Vatican).