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Top Three DC Tourist Sites Ruined By Dan Brown's 'The Lost Symbol'

First he came for Rome, and no one was particularly worried. Then he came for Paris, and only the French were upset. But now Dan Brown's latest book The Lost Symbol has set its sights on Washington D.C., and the normally tourist-clogged city will soon have to contend with book-toting thriller nerds who missed the fact that Nicolas Cage already found the secret Freemason treasures, and they're in New York.

Haven't bothered to read The Lost Symbol yet, you lazy so-and-so? David Plotz of Slate called it "awesomely wrong about what makes [Washington D.C.] compelling."

Here's our guide of sites in the book to avoid on your next trip to the Beltway:

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Dan Brown / Literary Travel / Freemasons / History Travel / US Capitol / → All Tags

Dan Brown's 'Lost Symbol' Cover Reveals The U.S. Capitol

It's been five years since Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown put out his last book and the world has been anxiously anticipating a follow-up featuring the symbologist Robert Langdon. But (not surprisingly for a man who writes about secrets), he hasn't made it easy for us.

Indeed, the details of new book have been kept as fiercely guarded as anti-matter or the scandals of the Vatican. There has been no hint as to what the new story is about or where it will take place. Pretty much all we can legitimately assume is that Robert Langdon is back and he will probably find some PYT to uncover some age-old mysteries with. What mysteries those will be, we aren't sure of but with the release of the cover for his new novel, The Lost Symbol, due out in September, we think it may have something to do with the freemasons.

The U.S. cover version shows a lit-up U.S. Capitol building and a giant red wax seal which has symbols embedded in it. The U.K. version has a larger picture of the capitol building and instead of a wax seal, a key that looks, to our untrained eye, to be a masonic key.

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Movie Set Travel / Rome Travel / Angels and Demons / The Da Vinci Code / Ron Howard / Dan Brown / → All Tags

Finding The Illuminati in Rome...and Los Angeles

Like its predecessor, “The Da Vinci Code”, which created a tourism frenzy in Scotland and France, "Angels and Demons" already has tourists flocking to Rome, Italy. All this week, Ellen has been recapping her recent Rome Field Trip which is blessedly free of any "Angels and Demons" mentions. But we understand that there are some of you out there who need to retrace Robert Langdon's steps across the Eternal City.

But if you care less about where the movie is supposed to take place and more about where it was actually filmed, then you’re better off catching the next flight to Los Angeles then a flight to Rome. Most of the film was actually made on a sound stage in L.A., thanks to the Catholic Church’s hatred for all things Dan Brown.

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Movie Set Travel / City Tours / Angels and Demons / Dan Brown / Rome Travel / Vatican / → All Tags

Get Conspiratorial With Angels and Demons In Rome

The Eternal City has a love/hate relationship with Dan Brown productions, especially in their cinematic incarnations. On one hand the Vatican is pretty pissed about how Angels and Demons, the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, is filled with feverish conspiratorial idiocy. They actually went so far as to ban the filmmakers from using the Church's Rome locations, complicating the producers' endeavor to "set the film in Rome."

On the other hand: tourist dollars!

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Celeb Travel / Tom Hanks / Dan Brown / Ron Howard / The Da Vinci Code / Movie Set Travel / → All Tags

Not This Movie Set Travel: Church Blocks New Dan Brown Adaptation

Hey, remember those awesome scenes in "The Da Vinci Code" where Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu went into a church and discovered "Jesus" could be her middle name? (It was something like that.) Well, hope you enjoyed those sweeping Ron Howard shots, because the Vatican is cracking down on filming requests for the Dan Brown prequel "Angels and Demons."

When the Catholic Church was unable to kill the best-selling thriller and the train of books that followed it, it struck back by blocking Tom Hanks and Howard from shooting inside two Rome churches, Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, which supposedly figure prominently into the plot of "Angels and Demons."

(We've never read it, but we assume it takes Langdon the symbologist from idyllic desert childhood to kill-happy atheist. It's a prequel, after all!)

Church cooperation or no, look for "Angels and Demons" to hit theaters sometime in 2009, with new costars Ewan McGregor as a Vatican hotshot and Ayelet Zurer ("Vantage Point," "Munich") as the requisite hot-lady scientist.

Related Stories:
· Movie Set Travel: "The Da Vinci Code" [Jaunted]
· Vatican Bans Tom Hanks from Filming in Churches [ICYDK]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Defamer]