Houses of Parliament - Strahov monastery, Prague

In Casino Royale, after Bond has killed Mollaka the Bomb maker at the embassy in Madagascar, M is summoned to appear in front of a committee in the Houses of Parliament. Bond's actions are questioned by the committee and they hold M responsible. M and Villiers are walking through what appears to be the Houses of Parliament after the meeting. 

The scene in the film pictures the Parliament and then cuts to the Committee room where M and Villiers are walking out.

"Christ I miss the cold war!"

The library, however, is not located in London, but in a monastery in Prague. The hall where M and Villiers are walking through is called the Philosophical Hall, and can be found at the Strahov Monastery. The monastery was founded in 1143 and the Philosophical Hall dates back to the late 1700's. The entire hall was totally renovated between 2009-2010.

The Philosophical Hall is open for the public, but only through the main entrance. If you want to walk through the halls you need to call ahead and book a tour. Due to the temperature changes only small groups are allowed in the hall a the same time. The film team probably managed to film there due to the fact that the hall were to be renovated a few years later.

In the adjacent room to the Philosophical Hall, a fake wall with the committee room entrance was put up. It is quite obvious that the walls with the red wallpaper are backdrops. Especially when you look through the room in the background.

Bookshelves from the Theological Hall can be seen in the background 

In the far background you can see a very small part of the the Theological Hall which is another library located parallel to the Philosophical Hall in the monastery.

Theological Hall

"I give Bond 00 status and he celebrates by shooting up an embassy! Is the man deranged?!"

The One & Only Ocean Club - Nassau

Bond drives up in his rental Ford Mondeo to the entrance of the hotel 

In Casino Royale, Bond checks in to The One & Only Ocean Club in the Bahamas. He follows a lead from the terrorist Mollaka, whom he tracked down and killed in Madagascar, which points him to Nassau in the Bahamas. Lucky Bond... The One & Only is a luxury resort, located on the northern shores of Paradise Island, connected to Nassau with two bridges.

All the scenes at the The One & Only were filmed at location at the hotel and the roundabout in front of the entrance still look like in the film. The One & Only is probably one of the most expensive hotels in Nassau but if you have cash like Bond, or the Mi6 bankrolling your visit, it is definitely worth it. The service is excellent and the location itself leaves nothing to be desired.

Bond leaves his car to the valet, leaving the front entrance unsupervised, enabling Bond to pretending to be the valet when two Germans drive up in a Range Rover.

"Hello! Are you going to take this or make me wait?"

As Bond crashes the Range Rover and walks into the hotel, the other guests look chocked towards the car park.

If you arrive by car to the One & Only, you can either leave it to the valet, for about $16 or you can park the car yourself at the same car park free of charge. You might want to leave it for the valet like Bond, but it is still satisfying to drive into the car park yourself. The car park is located quite close to the hotel, so the scenes in the film are quite screen accurate.

Bond arrives in his rental Ford Mondeo

Bond arrives in Nassau - Compass Point

When this is posted, James Bond Locations has reached over one million page views since the blog inaugurations in 2011. This post should perhaps have covered a slightly more celebrated location, but as the summer has arrived, it is time to consider what kind of rental car one should choose for a trip abroad and a reminder of Bond's choice in 2006 felt appropriate.

In Casino Royale, when Bond arrives in Nassau in the Bahamas, he takes a rental car from the airport to the One & Only Ocean Club. On his way to the hotel, located on Paradise Island, he passes a row of houses with colorful rooftops as David Arnold's splendid soundtrack is played in the background. The houses are located on the northern shores of Nassau, at a place called Compass Point.

The entire scene is virtually a phone and car commercial, but it is nonetheless a very nice scene and  Bond is guided by the GPS tracking system in his Sony Ericsson phone as he is listening to Radio Bahamas in the car. He ultimately ends up at the One & Only Ocean Club on Paradise Island, located on the other side of the island.

The fact that Bond drives past Compass Point after landing with the sea plane is a factual error, since the airfield where Bond disembarks the seaplane is located on Paradise Island, quite close to the Ocean Club where Bond ultimately is heading, which is illustrated in the map below. Compass Point is a seaside resort.

Compass point is located on the north western part of Nassau - far away from Paradise Island

1,000,000 page views and counting! 

James Bond locations will return. 

Paradise Island Airport - Nassau, Bahamas

In Casino Royale, Bond arrives in Nassau, the Bahamas, in a small seaplane. He gets off at Paradise Island and the iconic Hotel Atlantis is seen in the background. Bond is on his way to the One & Only Ocean Club to track down Mr Dimitrios.

The small airport with a seaplane facility that once was located on Paradise Island is gone today and not a trace remains. But the airport was there at the time of filming in 2006 and the field is still accessible today.

Bond's seaplane lands in the canal in Nassau Harbour, between Paradise Island and Nassau. The opening shot pictures the British Colonial Hilton hotel by the beach as the seaplane flies over.

British Colonial Hilton

The scenes from Casino Royale were filmed in 2006. The airport in Paradise Island mainly operated one airline at the time, namely Chalk's Ocean Airways. Not much information about the airport is available, but Chalk's suspended operations in 2007 after a crash in 2005 and one can imagine that the sea-plane facility stopped being used regularly when Chalk's Ocean Airways ceased operations.

Chalk's was one the most legendary commuter airlines in America, it billed itself as "The World's Oldest Airline". Chalk's flew seaplanes in south Florida and the Bahamas for over 8 decades. The airfield actually played a small part in the Pierce Brosnan movie After the Sunset with Salma Hayek. As her character Lola is about to leave Max (Pierce Brosnan) and take the sea plane from the Bahamas, Brosnan stops her from getting on the plane and asks her to marry him. The seaplane is from Chalk's.

Nambutu embassy - John Watling's Destillery, the Bahamas

After escaping Bond through the construction site, Mollaka ends up at the Nambutu Embassy in Madagascar.

Even the scene where Mollaka runs up to the guards by the entrance gate was filmed on the same location as the rest of the exterior of the embassy action, namely at the John Watling's rum destillery, in Nassau, Bahamas. Formerly known as the Buena Vista estate in central Nassau.

The entrance gate to the Buena Vista estate is located on Delancy Street, only a few hundred meters from downtown Nassau. The gate posts are still the same as in the film even though most of the estate has been renovated and is no longer recognisable. The trees seen in the film in front of the embassy building however, can still be found on location.

Range Rover - the car of choice for the villain

A View to a Kill 

First generation Range Rover - 1983 year model in A view to a kill

Range Rover has played a rather significant part in the later half of the Bond series. Bond has not only himself been seen behind the wheel of Range Rovers (in Octopussy, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) but Range Rover has been the car of choice for several of the villains in the series. Range Rovers have been useful to the villains' henchmen in not less than six films.

The tradition started with Max Zorin, played by Christopher Walken, in A View to a Kill 1985. After having disposed of Bond and his car in the lake near Zorin's chateau outside Paris, Zorin and May Day are picked up by Zorin's men. In the film, the Range Rover that was used is the first generation Range Rover from 1983. This first generation model was produced between 1970 and 1996.

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Tomorrow Never Dies



In Tomorrow, Carver sends his men after Bond and Wai Lin, after they both have jumped off his skyscraper in Saigon and escaped on a BMW motorcycle. The chase, with the spectacular motorcycle jump over Carver's helicopter in the finale, supposedly set in Vietnam was actually filmed in Bangkok.

Carver's Range Rover cars feature rather prominently in the film, and consequently this was the second time in the Bond series that the villain had purchased Range Rovers for his henchmen. The assassin in The Living Daylights, who is driving a Land Rover down the rock of Gibraltar does not count as that Land Rover is stolen from the British Army.

Second generation Range Rover - 1995 year model in Tomorrow Never Dies

The Range Rovers chase Bond and Wai Lin through the streets of Saigon crashing into almost everything. This second generation Range Rover was produced between 1994 and 2002 and was replaced by the model seen in Die Another Day.

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Die Another Day

Third generation Range Rover - model year 2002 in Die Another Day

When Gustav Graves is being knighted in Die Another Day he is being picked up by his men outside Buckingham Palace in two Range Rover cars of the third generation. The cars are only briefly seen in this scene and Graves is only seen driven off, supposedly through the gates of Buckingham, but the cars can also be seen parked in Iceland later in the film.

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Casino Royale
This model was seen again in Casino Royale when Le Chiffre's men are driving a Range Rover Series III from 2005 alongside the Jaguar in Montenegro, parked in the picture below.

Earlier in Casino Royale three Land Rover Defenders model 110 from 2005 are also used by Le Chiffre while he is in Mbale in Africa.

The third generation Range Rover was introduced in 2002 and was produced for ten years. This model was also driven by Bond in Bolivia in Quantum of Solace.

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Skyfall
Silva's henchmen in Skyfall have chosen a Range Rover Police car in London, before driving to the inquiry M is attending. The car is a 2011 Land Rover Discovery of the fourth generation. A Land Rover Defender Pick Up was also driven by Eve in the pre-title sequence.

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Spectre
In Spectre, Hinx and his henchmen are kidnapping Dr Swan in the Austrian alps. The henchmen are driving off in two Land Rover Defenders Big Foot and Hinx is riding in a Range Rover of the fourth generation. The model is a Range Rover Sport SVR from 2015. Both models have been customized for an alpine drive. Blofeld himself keeps two Mercedes-Benz AMG models in the Moroccan desert.

The fourth generation Range Rover was introduced in 2012 and is still being produced.

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Goldfinger

A bit off topic, but even Goldfinger had a Land Rover in Goldfinger 1964, as a 1958 Land Rover is seen parked on the premises of Goldfinger's factory in Switzerland.