In the Footsteps of Amélie Poulain: Cinematic Paris

Some films cling to a city to the point of reshaping it. Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain, known in English simply as Amélie, is one of them. Released in 2001, it gave Paris a tender, time-worn image, made of zinc counters, sloping lanes and small, meticulous joys. More than twenty years on, its settings still exist, and you can still drink a coffee there, skip pebbles or wander beneath the streetlamps.

Here is a stroll in Amélie’s footsteps, and more broadly through the Paris of great film shoots. An itinerary to experience slowly, notebook in pocket, letting the city replay its scenes.

The Café des Deux Moulins, heart of the film

It all begins on rue Lepic, in Montmartre, in this café where Amélie serves grenadine sodas and observes her customers. The Café des Deux Moulins truly exists and continues to welcome the curious from all over the world. The room has kept its banquettes, its mirrors and its counter, and you will find a few nods to the film without it turning into a museum.

The best time to sit down remains mid-morning, when the street wakes up and the regulars have their first coffee. You order a crème brûlée, settle near the window, and watch Montmartre go about its business.

Montmartre, a village within the city

Beyond the café, it is the whole neighbourhood that serves as a setting. Montmartre keeps the air of a perched village: staircases, vineyards, artists’ studios and secret passages. A few stops are worth the detour:

• Rue Lepic and its market, for the neighbourhood atmosphere.
• The square Marcel-Bleustein-Blanchet, below the Sacré-Cœur, where Amélie helps a blind man cross the street.
• The place du Tertre, lively but unmissable, for its portrait artists and the view.

The ideal is to climb up early, before the crowds, and to lose yourself deliberately in the lanes. Montmartre is earned on foot, and rewards those who take their time.

The grocery on rue des Trois Frères

A few steps lower down, rue des Trois Frères is home to the famous grocery where Lucien, the clumsy shop assistant, works under the eye of the grumpy Collignon. The shopfront, colourful and overflowing with fruit, has remained one of the most photographed in the neighbourhood.

It is the chance to do your shopping just like in the film: a few seasonal fruits, a cheese, a still-warm baguette. The kind of simple basket that sums up the Parisian art of living, without ceremony.

The canal Saint-Martin and the skipping stones

A change of atmosphere as you head down towards the canal Saint-Martin. It is here, on the stone banks, that Amélie skips her pebbles, her back to the water, in one of the most famous images of the film. The metal footbridges, the locks and the plane trees compose a setting that cinema has often coveted.

Today, the canal is one of Parisians’ favourite places to wander or picnic. In the late afternoon, the golden light slides over the water and the quays slowly fill up. People come here to read, to chat, to watch the boats cross the locks in slow motion.

The gare de l’Est and the Paris of trains

The film also makes a detour through the gare de l’Est, where the story of the recovered photo-booth album unfolds. The great Paris stations, with their glass roofs and their suspended departures, have always fascinated filmmakers. They concentrate waiting, chance and reunions, the raw material of many a story.

Beyond Amélie, Paris remains an immense open-air film set. A few legendary settings can still be visited:

• The pont Bir-Hakeim and its metal walkway, seen in many films.
• The place Dauphine and the île de la Cité, discreet and timeless settings.
• The covered passages, like the galerie Vivienne, for their glass-roof light.

Composing your route

The charm of this itinerary lies in its freedom. You can do it in a morning, coffee included, or stretch it over a whole day by adding a lunch in Montmartre and a late afternoon by the canal. The essential thing is to walk, to look up and to find again, at the turn of a street, the attentive and poetic Paris that the film immortalised.

For those who welcome loved ones come from far away, this kind of route often makes the loveliest of memories. This is precisely what a dedicated concierge can prepare at French Realty: drawing up a tailor-made itinerary, booking a table at the right moment of the stroll, organising the practical details so that your guests need only enjoy themselves. All billed by time spent, without any subscription, so that Paris can be discovered with a light heart.