Travel Guide Speaks in 'Code'
 Carol Memmott - USA TODAY
| Guide to a religious thriller: Follow in the steps of symbology scholar Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu, from France to Scotland.
Some can't-miss stops on The Da Vinci Code trail:
The Louvre, Paris: Symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned here by the French police when a naked corpse is discovered in the museum.
The Vatican: The Code's action sidesteps this city-state, but the Catholic Church's hierarchy is a constant in the book.
Westminster Abbey, London: Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu make a key discovery at the abbey's tomb of Sir Isaac Newton.
Rosslyn Chapel, Roslin, Scotland: Chasing the Holy Grail, Langdon and Neveu make a climactic discovery here. |
Fodor's, the granddaddy of travel guides, wants you to hit the road with the Code.
For the first time in its 70-year history, the publisher of more than 300 travel books is bowing to the gods of popular culture and publishing a book tied to an already popular travel trend: visiting the destinations in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, one of the best-selling novels of all time.
"We just want it to be an enjoyable read for people who have read the novel," says Fodor's publisher Tim Jarrell. "But if you're going to Paris, you could certainly retrace the steps of Sophie and Langdon."
Fodor's Guide to the Da Vinci Code ($14.95), Jarrell says, will have a 150,000 first print run, the largest for any Fodor's guide. A typical first run is 20,000 to 50,000.
Da Vinci Code city tours are nothing new. Numerous travel agencies offer them for Paris, London and multiple locales, and Fodor's has a Code tour of Paris posted on its website. But the book traces a complete European Code tour, which begins in France and ends in Scotland. It outlines a 12-day itinerary with stops in Paris, the Loire Valley, Vatican City, Castel Gandolfo, Milan, London, Edinburgh and nearby Roslin.
Like symbology scholar Robert Langdon, the peripatetic hero of the religious thriller, Da Vinci voyagers following the Code trail can wake up in a posh room at the Hotel Ritz in Paris.
The guide also tells where to rent a tiny SmartCar like the one in which Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu flee Paris, and where to revive yourself with a pint on London's Fleet Street after visiting Temple Church.
The Fodor's guide hits bookstores March 28, the same day as 5 million copies of Anchor's paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code and Broadway's paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code Special Illustrated Edition. It's no coincidence. Fodor's, Anchor and Broadway, as well as Doubleday, the publisher of the Code hardcover, are all divisions of Random House.
On May 19, when the Code movie, starring Tom Hanks, is released worldwide, Doubleday will publish The Da Vinci Code Illustrated Screenplay: Behind the Scenes of the Major Motion Picture.
It's no mystery that all these books probably will be best sellers. |
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Travel & Outdoors | March 2006 
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