This book makes me want to fly to Italy and explore these places using Brown's book as a guide. Between the geography, art, architecture, and literary references (particularly to Dante's Inferno), the amount of research in this book is extremely impressive. Unfortunately, I thought the description sometimes overshadowed the story. There was more 'meat' to The Da Vinci Code. Still, if you want to be transported to another world, I certainly recommend this ambitious novel.