Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: From Utah to the Grail

The film opens with a Boy Scout Indy living with his father in Moab, Utah. On a scout excursion into the caves he takes a crucifix that belonged to Francisco Vázquez de Coronado from graverobbers led by a man named Garth, and everything that follows starts with that theft. The rest of the opening was filmed in Arches National Park, four miles north of Moab: a high desert holding more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including Delicate Arch, the highest density of natural arches in the world.

Location precision: The opening moves through the park's canyons; the pin marks Arches National Park rather than the one stretch of rock used.

Visitor guidance: A national park since 1971, administered by the National Park Service and only a few miles from Moab; Delicate Arch is the best-known walk in it.

Indy reaches Venice carrying his father's diary and research, with Marcus Brody alongside, to meet Dr. Elsa Schneider, Henry's associate. The library where Henry was seen is the Campo San Barnaba: the film's church façade passes for the institution, and in the story Indy and Elsa climb down into the catacomb beneath it, where an inscribed shield shows the path to the Grail begins in Alexandretta. Venice was locked down for the unit — the Grand Canal was held from 7 am to 1 pm to keep tourists out of the boat chase — and the city shoot took a single day, 8 August 1988.

Visitor guidance: The neoclassical Chiesa di San Barnaba stands in the Campo San Barnaba in Dorsoduro; the church itself is deconsecrated and used for exhibitions.

Henry is shut in a castle in Austria in the story, and the exteriors are a real castle in Germany: Bürresheim, built on rock in the Eifel mountains above the Nette. It plays "Schloss Brunwald", where Indy finds his father held by the Nazis. The crew flipped the image of the building and matte-painted a copy of its right façade onto the left of the main tower. Only the outside is German — the castle interiors were filmed at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood in June 1988. The castle is a museum now, one of three in the Eifel never destroyed.

Visitor guidance: A small museum castle northwest of Mayen in Rhineland-Palatinate, inhabited until 1921 and kept by the state heritage directorate.

The film's Berlin is a Nazi Tempelhof airport, where Indy retrieves his father's diary during a book burning rally hosted by Adolf Hitler. The exterior is real and American: the Administration Building on San Francisco's Treasure Island, whose art deco architecture already looked period-appropriate because it had been built in 1938 with an airport terminal in mind. ILM added a control tower, Nazi banners and a sign saying "Berlin Flughafen". The interior is further afield still — a London hall. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, and hangars on the same island have served as film sound stages since the late 1980s.

Visitor guidance: Building 1 on Treasure Island, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008; Hangars 2 and 3 next door have served as sound stages since the late 1980s.

The Zeppelin Indy and Henry flee on turns back toward Germany, so they commandeer a spare plane and head south with two Luftwaffe fighters on their tail. Over the Almería coast the birds come down on the aircraft — Henry waves an umbrella at the gulls and sends them into the fighters. Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park supplied the road, the tunnel and the beach for it, at Playa de Mónsul. Mónsul is on the park's film list too: Antony and Cleopatra, The NeverEnding Story, Baron Munchausen and Talk to Her. The park has been a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1997.

Visitor guidance: Known for its volcanic Peineta cliff and its dune; a bus runs from San José every 30 minutes, and walking or cycling in is free.

Indy copies a route to the Grail out of his father's diary and sends Marcus Brody to Alexandretta to meet Sallah. Brody gets no further than the station: soon after he arrives, the Nazis take him captive. The station the crew used was Guadix's, in Granada province, where they wrapped the Spanish shoot on 2 June 1988 — and where they built a real mosque beside the line for atmosphere rather than painting one in. The town stands at 913 metres on a high plain below the Sierra Nevada, and its cathedral really was built over a Moorish mosque.

Location precision: The film names only "Alexandretta train station"; the pin marks Guadix station, where the scene was shot, dressed with a purpose-built mosque.

Visitor guidance: Guadix station is still in service, with Renfe regional and long-distance trains.

The film's action-packed centrepiece was shot here. Principal photography opened in the Tabernas Desert on 16 May 1988, about 30 km inland north of Almería, and Spielberg — who had planned the tank pursuit as a short sequence shot over two days — storyboarded it into the centrepiece it became. In the film Indy, Henry and Brody wreck the Nazi convoy chasing them and send Vogel's tank over a cliff. Tabernas is the only desert in Europe and has hosted more than 300 films since the late 1950s; the old western town of Mini Hollywood is now a visitor attraction.

Location precision: The chase was shot across the desert without a single named stretch; the pin marks the Tabernas Desert itself.

Visitor guidance: About 30 km north of Almería; Mini Hollywood, an old western town, is now a visitor attraction.

The Grail's temple fronts on Al-Khazneh, the Treasury — a rock-cut tomb carved out of a sandstone cliff, probably built as a mausoleum in the reign of Aretas IV in the early 1st century AD, and one of the most popular attractions in the region. Only the outside is Jordanian: the temple interiors were built at Elstree Studios in England. Inside, Donovan mortally wounds Henry and only a drink from the Grail can save him. The unit came to Petra the day after Venice, and while they shot, the cast and crew were guests of King Hussein and Queen Noor.

Visitor guidance: Visitors still approach Petra through the Siq, the gorge that is in places only 3–4 m wide; the Treasury stands at its far end.

The film ends with four men riding into the sunset — Indy, his father, Sallah and Brody — after the Grail falls into an abyss in the temple. That closing shot was not filmed in the desert of the story: the second unit, directed by Frank Marshall, shot it in Amarillo, Texas, in early 1989, months after the rest of the location work. Amarillo is the most populous city in the Texas Panhandle.

Location precision: The film's last shot is only credited to Amarillo; the pin marks the city, not the exact stretch of ground.