A Harvard symbologist unravels a Grail conspiracy that starts at the Louvre. The Paris sequence in the first act takes in three of the city's best-known interiors.
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In Paris, almost everything is around the Louvre, where the professor Robert Langdon is called in after a murder. Start with the Grande Galerie of the opening chase, then go out to the glass pyramid and down to the Pyramide Inversée, the upside-down pyramid in the Carrousel du Louvre that is the film's last image. The Pont du Carrousel, where the police chase a decoy while Langdon and Sophie escape, is a two-minute walk.
At the end of the film Langdon follows the Rose Line, a line marked by small brass medallions in the pavement. To walk it, start at the Ritz on Place Vendôme and head to the Palais-Royal, looking for the medallions in the courtyards and under the colonnade, then cross Place Colette to the Louvre: about 15 minutes in all. Saint-Sulpice is across the river, 15 to 20 minutes from the Grande Galerie. The Montmartre street where the killer monk Silas hides is a separate trip by metro. One day covers all of Paris.
Inside Saint-Sulpice, look down: the brass strip in the floor is real. Rue Becquerel is a quiet stepped street with a rare view of the back of Sacré-Cœur, and Amélie is about five minutes away on foot.
18 places from the story: filming locations and other places linked to it.
Showing 9 of 18
The opening chase through the Grande Galerie, where Sony negotiated rare filming access. The perspective shots down the gallery are unrepeatable.
Access · Ticket required
Langdon is brought to the Louvre at night and crosses the Cour Napoléon past the great glass pyramid, the museum's entrance. The film's very last image, under the small inverted pyramid, has its own stop: the Pyramide Inversée.
Access · Public courtyard
The church where Silas searches for the keystone. The outside of the church was filmed for real, but permission to film inside was refused, so the interior was recreated digitally. The brass meridian line in the floor is real: an 18th-century scientific instrument that the story turns into the 'Rose Line'.
Access · Public space
Langdon's hotel. The establishing shots feature the Place Vendôme column and the hotel's famous entrance.
Access · Exterior only
The film's last image: Langdon follows the brass Arago medallions to this upside-down glass pyramid and kneels above the spot where the Grail is said to rest. Today it hangs over the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall, its tip almost touching a small stone pyramid below.
Access · Public space
At the end of the story Langdon follows the 'Rose Line' to the Louvre. It is really the old Paris meridian, which the artist Jan Dibbets marked across the city with 135 small brass Arago medallions set into the ground, and a few of them are here in the Palais-Royal. In the book Langdon's walk passes these gardens; the film shortens it, and no location guide shows it was filmed here.
Access · Public space
In the book, Langdon's walk along the 'Rose Line' from the Ritz to the Louvre passes the Comédie-Française, France's national theatre. The film shortens the walk, and no location guide shows it was filmed here. One of the brass Arago medallions that mark the Paris meridian is set in the Galerie de Nemours, the arcade beside the theatre on Place Colette.
Access · Ticket required for the interior
The corner of Rue Becquerel and Rue de la Bonne, behind the Sacré-Cœur, stands in for the Opus Dei flat where the monk Silas receives his orders and punishes himself. The quiet stepped street gives a rare back view of the basilica's white dome.
Access · Public space. People live here: keep your voice down and don't ring the bells.
Sophie presses the GPS tracker into a bar of soap and hurls it from a Louvre window onto a passing truck; Fache's police cars chase the decoy across this bridge while she and Langdon slip away in her Smart car. The bridge's tall lamp obelisks frame the Louvre's Grande Galerie perfectly.
Access · Public space
The film's finale: the last clue from the cryptex leads Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), the Harvard symbol expert, and Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), the French police cryptologist, to this 15th-century chapel near Edinburgh, where Sophie learns the truth about her family. The interior scenes were shot here in September 2005. The chapel was under scaffolding at the time, so the wide outside views used replica walls and a scale model. The ruins of Rosslyn Castle, where the two part, are a few hundred metres to the south.
Access · Ticketed, opening hours vary by day and season: check before you go.
Following a riddle about 'a knight a Pope interred', Langdon, Sophie and the British Grail scholar Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen) come to this round 12th-century church of the Knights Templar and search among the stone effigies of knights on the floor. The church sits hidden in a maze of lawyers' courtyards between Fleet Street and the Thames.
Access · Still a working church with limited opening times for visitors: check before you go.
Langdon and Sophie come here looking for the tomb of Isaac Newton, the next step in the riddle, and it is outside the Abbey that Teabing is finally taken away by the police. The Abbey refused to let the film shoot inside, so the church interior you see is Lincoln Cathedral. The outside scenes were filmed for real in the streets around the Abbey, with real tourists looking on.
Access · The outside and the surrounding streets are public. Visiting inside is ticketed and the Abbey closes for services: check before you go. Newton's real tomb is inside, but it was not filmed.
This cathedral stands in for the inside of Westminster Abbey, which refused permission to film: Newton's tomb was rebuilt here in gilt, and the tense showdown with Teabing in the Abbey was shot mainly in Lincoln's cloisters in August 2005. A nun held a protest outside during filming, and the cathedral's great bell stayed silent for the shoot.
Access · Ticketed for visitors, with times that change around services: check before you go.
One of the English churches the film used in place of buildings it could not film. Sources differ on which scenes were shot here: some say church scenes set in the Vatican, others parts of the Westminster Abbey sequence. The cathedral used its filming fee to pay for an exhibition and talks answering the book's claims.
Access · Ticketed for visitors, with times that change around services: check before you go.
This Elizabethan mansion lent its rooms to several scenes set elsewhere: interiors of Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence, and the garage at Teabing's French château, Château Villette, from which Langdon and Sophie escape.
Access · House and gardens open seasonally with tickets: check before you go.
The hilltop home of the Dukes of Rutland plays the outside of Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence, where Bishop Aringarosa of Opus Dei meets church officials. The film added domes and other changes with computer effects, so the real castle looks quite different.
Access · Open on selected days with tickets: check before you go.
The listed 1936 art deco terminal of this small airfield on the English south coast stands in for Le Bourget airport near Paris, where Langdon, Sophie and Teabing slip out of France in Teabing's private plane. It was a night shoot.
Access · A working airport (now called Brighton City Airport): the outside of the terminal can be seen from the public car park. Check before you go for any visitor access.
The concert hall of this arts centre in south London stands in for the Paris lecture hall where Langdon gives a talk on symbols at the start of the film, just before the French police come to find him.
Access · Inside only with a ticket for an event: check the programme before you go.
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Yes.
The opening chase was filmed in the Grande Galerie, with rare permission; you need a museum ticket to walk it.
The final image is under the Pyramide Inversée, which is free to see in the Carrousel du Louvre.
The brass line in the floor of Saint-Sulpice is real: an 18th-century scientific instrument.
The 'Rose Line' is the story's idea.
The film could not shoot inside and recreated the church digitally.
In London, Temple Church and the streets outside Westminster Abbey; the Abbey's interior was played by Lincoln Cathedral.
The finale is at Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh.
All have limited visiting times: check before you go.
Roseo's estimate: one day in Paris for the walk and the Louvre, two days in London, and one day from Edinburgh for Rosslyn.
Tap a number to see the place and get directions in Maps.
Walk ~5 min
Nearest metro: Lamarck–Caulaincourt (L12)
Silas's apartment
Walk ~5 min
Walk ~5 min
Langdon's Rose Line: from the Ritz to the Louvre and Saint-Sulpice
The walk the book ends with, from Langdon's hotel along the old Paris meridian to the inverted pyramid, then across the river to Silas's church.
The medallions are small and easy to miss: look at the ground. Saint-Sulpice is free, but close to services keep quiet.
On a phone, Google Maps opens at most 5 places at a time.
Walk ~12 min
Book ending: the Rose Line walk (not filmed here)
Walk ~5 min
Book: the Rose Line walk (not filmed here)
Walk ~5 min
Walk ~5 min
Finale
Walk ~5 min
Night arrival at the Louvre
Walk ~5 min
Escape from the Louvre
Walk ~17 min
Silas search sequence (exterior filmed here, interior recreated digitally)
Walk ~5 min
In chapter 3 of the novel Langdon names the Musée d'Orsay among the great museums seen from the Arc du Carrousel.
Visit: about 2 h 30 minticket needed
Walk ~5 min
Walk ~6 min
In chapter 3 of Dan Brown's novel, the police car carrying Langdon races through the Tuileries towards the Louvre.
Walk ~18 min
Walk ~5 min
Louvre Museum (Grande Galerie)Lunch: La PaletteSainte-Chapelle16:40 To the stationLouvre Museum (Grande Galerie)Estimated return 17:30 · add yours in Trip preferences
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Hotels and meals estimate:about €1,410
Rosslyn Chapel, Lincoln Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Burghley House, Belvoir Castle, Shoreham Airport terminal: too far for the trip in Paris. Their pages say how to get there.
Hotel3 nights × €310 · 1 room€930
Lunches and dinners2 people€480
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3 nights · 2 people
Hotels along the story's route.
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Experience of the story · GetYourGuide
Restaurants and activities near the story's places.
Paris
The Da Vinci Code: a tour linked to the story
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Paris: all activities on GetYourGuide
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Not part of the story, just good addresses close to its places.
Café under the Palais-Royal arcades by the Comédie-Française; seen in The Intouchables
historic café · €€
2 Place Colette, 75001 Paris
Louvre café with a terrace facing the Pyramid; a Call My Agent! location (S4E2)
French brasserie · €€€
93 Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris
Palais-Royal restaurant founded in 1784, reopened in 2026 with chef Bruno Doucet; seen in Emily in Paris
haute cuisine · €€€€
17 Rue de Beaujolais, 75001 Paris
London
London: all activities on GetYourGuide
The link opens the destination's catalogue, not a tour made for the story →
Not part of the story, just good addresses close to its places.
Thames-view restaurant in the Royal Festival Hall, named after a 1951 tower, near Westminster Bridge from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
modern European · €€€
Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
Restaurant inside Shakespeare's Globe with a view of the Thames, on the Bankside walk near the London places of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
modern European · €€
21 New Globe Walk, Bankside, London SE1 9DT
Candlelit Michelin listed wine bar and restaurant on Lamb's Conduit Street, a walk from the British Museum
bistro · €€€
51 Lamb's Conduit Street, London WC1N 3NB
Production · film commissions · tourist boards · guides
We always say if it is:
Production · film commissions · tourist boards · guides
We always say if it is:
