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On our trip to Mount Vernon in December, our family splurged on a special tour. A behind-the-scenes look at the locations of National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Book of Secrets<\/em> takes place in locations across the world. One of them is Mount Vernon, where Benjamin Gates crashes the president’s birthday party. Since director Jon Turteltaub filmed on location whenever possible, they came to Mount Vernon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s a short scene, only three minutes of the total two-hour-plus movie. But filming itself took several weeks, as our tour guide explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tour started on the lawn outside the house, overlooking the Potomac River. They filmed the party scene there after hours without closing the estate to visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then we proceeded to the coolest part of the tour- the house basement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The basement is only open to special tours, like the one we took. The ceilings are low and the lights are dim. But it was amazing to see such an unknown part of the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our guide told us they did most of the basement filming on a reconstructed set in Hollywood to preserve the actual location. However, they wanted to use some of the real basement for the movie. So the shot of Nicholas Cage walking down the stairs to the basement was filmed at Mount Vernon itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n