After we were given the warning to be silent, we all gathered inside near the Chigi Chapel, which was designed by Raphael and filled with works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, a 17th century sculptor -- including the sculpture of a pyramid, a shape that plays a huge role in the novel.

But we couldn't see any of it. The entire chapel was covered in white plastic and scaffolding. Same went for the ''demon's hole,'' a marble, manhole-sized insert in the floor that covers a subterranean crypt. In the book, the Chigi Chapel was covered due to construction -- yet unlike Professor Langdon, our tour group couldn't pull the plastic aside to see the marble, pyramid-shaped wall tombs.

I wondered whether the rest of the sites on the tour would be off-limits too. Director Ron Howard claimed that the Vatican interfered with efforts to get permits to shoot certain scenes around Rome, a charge the church said was purely a publicity stunt on Howard's part. Yet Rome's diocese admitted last year it had barred producers from filming inside two churches because the movie didn't conform to Catholic views.

At the front of the church, the priest began Mass. My husband, raised Catholic in Italy, reflexively crossed himself. I snapped a quick photo of the creepy skeleton on the way out.

As it turned out, the skeleton had nothing to do with Angels & Demons; it was an exquisite marble sculpture -- by Bernini.

ST. PETER'S

From there, a bus whisked us to St. Peter's Square. The guide discussed the fictional ''mystic elements'' in the book -- earth, air, fire, water -- then told a story about Roman Emperor Nero and St. Peter's execution.

We spent about 45 minutes outside the Vatican (we didn't go inside; the tour is banned from entering), listening to the guide explain both Bernini's work and read passages from the book.

Then we hustled back to the bus that took us to the rest of the stops: Santa Maria della Vittoria, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and Castel Sant'Angelo. True to the book, Bernini's statues of angels were everywhere. We even worked in a stop for espresso, which nearly everyone drank despite the heat of the midday Roman sun.

My favorite spot came midway through the tour, at Santa Maria della Vittoria, where Bernini's The Ecstasy of St. Teresa sculpture sits. The priest even came out and smiled at us.

The interior of the church looks like it is dipped in gold, with dazzling murals, sculptures and paintings on every available surface.

While somewhat off the beaten path (it's a few blocks from the famous Trevi Fountain), it provided the most titillating history: As a young woman, St. Teresa experienced fits of ''ecstasy'' while dreaming of angels probing her body with spears. The racy statue inside this church depicts one of her dreams -- and even offers a laminated sheet of paper with passages from her eyebrow-raising diary.

In the novel Angels & Demons, this church was the scene of a particularly gruesome murder; our guide declined to read from the book while inside so he wouldn't offend anyone.

IN THE FLESH

Yet there was something even more macabre inside the church than Dan Brown's imagination: the church's namesake, Santa Vittoria herself.

Her centuries-old martyred body is encased in wax in a glass case -- but the wax has cracked at the tips of her fingers. Her bones are visible. She's dressed in an ivory gown and her head, circled in a wreath of white flowers, rests on a little pillow. Her eyes are closed, and her mouth is slightly open, as if she's snoring.

''Oh my God, look,'' I whispered to my husband, while peering at the tiny woman's face. ``You can see her real teeth!''

No need for fiction here -- reality was thrilling enough.

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