Clangers in the Temple

Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu (Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou) in The Da Vinci Code.

Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu, characters in The Da Vinci Code, are blessed with good luck. Not only can they escape certain arrest by crack police, death at the hands of an aggro albino monk and unravel ancient riddles at the rate some people have hot dinners, but they also find every church they arrive at open.

I wasn't so fortunate during a tailored walking tour of major settings in London a week or so after the movie opened. The legal types who run the Temple Church had decided to close it at short notice on a Saturday and the doors were also shut for a private service at Westminster Abbey where climactic scenes are played out in Dan Brown's cilice-ripper and the screen blockbuster.

Our guide Maria Bergman was disappointed but not deterred. She said weekdays were probably a better bet as the churches could shut at relatively short notice at other times.

Her company, Golden Tours, a year ago pioneered walking tours to cover ground pivotal to the parts of The Da Vinci Code story set in London and it pays to have read the book or at least seen the movie.

Bergman pointed out the now well-known clangers in the book's storyline throughout our four-hour walk but it was Brown's bold assertion, that all descriptions of architecture are accurate, that really wound her up.

"He shouldn't have said that - how could he say that," she said as she listed his mistakes.

The counter-industry, pointing out the glitches in the book which started all the fuss, is turning good coin.

At Temple Church 140,000 extra visitors are expected this year and in capitalising on the interest of Code pilgrims, the Master of the Temple, Rev Robin Griffiths-Jones, has acquired minor celebrity status. His book is out, video of his views is available on the internet ... and he delivers regular lunchtime talks at £4 ($11.80) a pop.

He takes a chatty, generous approach to debunking some of the claims made in the book now accepted as fact by Code believers.

Westminster Abbey is more aggressive. Strongly offended by the book, it refused to allow pivotal scenes to be filmed there, Lincoln Cathedral was used instead. Guardians of the Abbey tolerate Code tourists, but they hand out a sheet to visitors pointing out their concerns and have published a 26-page rebuttal which they hope will "disentangle fact from fiction".

Its cover is unambiguous: "The Da Vinci Code is harmless fun. However, it will thoroughly mislead people if they think it has something serious to say about Christianity; which it does not." It goes on to list 16 glaring mistakes Brown made in his descriptions of the Abbey. It's going for £2.99 ($8.80) and the staff at the Abbey museum told me it was selling like hot cakes.

Our guide Bergman, a part-time Swedish actor, has been leading walking tours in London for much of the past 15 years. She is a "lover of conspiracy" but very much a Code sceptic.

While in the Temple precinct she told us how the church was blacked out to become a gloomy, eerie place in the movie and rattled through the story of the Templar Knights who according to Dan Brown profited from guarding the secret of the Holy Grail. At the very least they lived interesting lives and met a sticky end, as effigies scattered on the floor of the church show.

A trickle of disappointed tourists turned up the day we did but I joined the flood who returned to what is in reality a beautiful church when it opened for an hour the following day.

Patrick Murphy of Leeds was typical of those there: "I saw the movie and it rekindled my interest in the history of this place."

Everett Propst from Chicago is a former Freemason; "I've got no problem with them, I just left," he said when asked about the protocol for leaving the organisation. "I wanted to come here after reading the book."

Bergman said she's only had a couple of "anoraks" who know everything about the book. Those on her parties, usually numbering about 20, range from true believers to those who know nothing about it. She said devotees' faces fell when she outlined fatal flaws in Dan Brown's take on the Priory of Sion - the mysterious group whose work underpins the entire story.

It was the off-Code sights that gave our tour its real value. Off Fleet St, Bergman diverted to Gough Square to look at the rickety house of Samuel Johnson, the father of the English dictionary in the 18th century. Be sure to admire the statue honouring his cat Hodge, "a very fine cat indeed".

We were shown the house where Mary Queen of Scots lived, the only known statue of Queen Elizabeth I and the only road in London where cars are allowed to drive on the wrong side of the road. We dipped into the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square for an insight and analysis of the Leonardo da Vinci work, The Virgin of the Rocks, labelled as "Madonna of the Rocks" in the book.

Another Code-related bonus was the nearby Church of Notre Dame de France, where much of the interior is the work of Jean Cocteau who, according to Dan Brown, was a modern grand master of the Priory of Sion. Although it's only fleetingly mentioned in the book, Bergman pointed out the rich body of Sion-related symbolism and with dramatic flourish produced a picture of a Code-laden fresco on an altar, inexplicably painted over.

Code believers would gain a scrap of hope from this fine, round church. For us it provided sanctuary from the rain at the end of Britain's worst May in 23 years. An umbrella stop then on to St James Park where in the book the butler is done in while parked up in a limo.

There Bergman pointed out several factual flaws, including Brown's unrealistic expectation of actually getting a park in central London - "he must have been here many years ago".

By then the rain was pouring, around the corner Westminster Abbey was closed and spirits were in danger of ebbing but as the albino monk Silas would say "pain is good" and get on with it.

So we did and a visit to the Abbey's cloisters was well worth the effort as was the museum which gives an insight into monarchs' deaths and lives, including an impossibly tiny corset worn by Queen Elizabeth I.

While Code fanatics would have been disappointed the churches were closed, our tour armed us for return visits. A walk anywhere in central London is a pleasure - especially with an expert and entertaining guide - and bears out Samuel Johnson's immortal line: "Sir when a man is tired of London he is tired of life for there is in London all that life can afford."

Checklist

LONDON

Getting There
Emirates flies from Auckland to Dubai three times a day and once from Christchurch. From the airline's Dubai hub there are frequent connections to Heathrow, Gatwick and to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. True Da Vinci Code buffs could consider flying into Glasgow, an 80km drive to Rosslyn Chapel, a key setting at the end of the book and movie. Return fares, including fuel surcharges start at $2430.

Staying in London
For a splurge try the Langham Hotel, an original grand hotel in London dating back to 1865. A short walk to shopping in Regent St and Oxford St and many central London attractions. Superior rooms start at £275 ($810) and range up to £6169 ($18,165) for four people in the luxurious Infinity Suite which includes a butler and a chauffeur-driven limousine.

Walking Tours
Golden Tours runs one tour based around the Temple Church and the Knights Templar. Prices start at £6 ($17.70).

Further Information
To plan your trip phone 0800 700 741 or see link below.

* Grant Bradley travelled to London courtesy of Emirates and VisitBritain.