Midnight in Paris Audio Walking Tour
Follow Midnight in Paris from the church steps of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont past Polidor, Stein's real door and Deyrolle to the Pont Alexandre III.
- 7 stops and 19 minutes of stories, told as you reach each place
- The intro and stop 1 are free in the app: try before you buy
- Download before you go; the audio plays without signal (the street map needs a connection)
- Walking with friends? Pick 1 to 10 seats; everyone hears each stop on their own phone, at the same moment
30 seconds of the real narration
Plays in the free Walk With Me app on iPhone and Android.
Where the story happens
Each stop, the moment of the story it belongs to, and what is there today.
| Stop | In the story | Today |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Saint-Étienne-du-Mont steps | Gil's midnight pickup point, night after night. | The side steps on Place de l'Abbé-Basset; the church was rebuilt between 1492 and 1626. |
| 2. Rue Malebranche | Number 15 plays Gertrude Stein's door; number 17 plays Bricktop's. | Plain apartment buildings with nothing to mark them. |
| 3. Polidor | Gil's first night: he meets Hemingway at a table inside. | A working restaurant that opened in 1845 as a crèmerie. |
| 4. 27 rue de Fleurus | Nothing was filmed here: the salon scenes used the door on rue Malebranche. | A private building with a plaque; Stein lived here from 1903 to 1938. |
| 5. Deyrolle | The 1920s party where Gil looks for Adriana and pitches an idea to Buñuel. | A working shop; the party was shot inside in July 2010. |
| 6. Musée Rodin | Gil, Inez and Paul tour the museum, and Paul argues with the guide. | The Hôtel Biron and its garden with The Thinker; one ticket covers both. |
| 7. Pont Alexandre III | The final scene by the Seine, as the rain starts. | A single steel arch built for the World's Fair of 1900, with the Invalides dome to the south. |
About this tour
Midnight in Paris is a film about walking. Gil gets lost on foot, finds the past on foot, and finds his future on foot in the rain. On this walk you feel how small his world was: the steps, the false doors, the real door and the bistro are minutes apart, as they would have been for Hemingway and Stein. And you see the trick the film plays, with real places standing in for other real places, all still here. If you'd like company along the way, open the Walk With Me live map to find other people out walking Paris right now.
The route
5.2 km in walking order from Saint-Étienne-du-Mont steps to Pont Alexandre III. Stop 1 is free in the app.
- 1Saint-Étienne-du-Mont stepsThe side steps of a hilltop church behind the Panthéon where Gil sits at midnight, and the only rood screen left in Paris.Free in the app
- 2Rue MalebrancheAn ordinary Latin Quarter street whose two doors stand in for famous 1920s addresses, and where the real ones were.
- 3PolidorAn old crèmerie turned restaurant on rue Monsieur-le-Prince where Gil meets his literary hero, and the famous names it claims as customers.
- 427 rue de FleurusGertrude Stein's real front door, marked by a plaque, and the Saturday evenings when painters and writers came to see her walls.
- 5DeyrolleA natural history shop of mounted animals and butterflies, a 1920s party in the film, and the fire it came back from.
- 6Musée RodinThe mansion and garden of the Musée Rodin, where Paul argues with the guide, and the artists who lived here before Rodin.€14 to go in
- 7Pont Alexandre IIIThe gilded Belle Époque bridge where the film's last scene plays out, and why its age suits the ending.
What costs extra
1 stop has a ticket to go inside.
| Stop | Inside | Ticket from |
|---|---|---|
| 6. Musée Rodin | Needed | €14 |
Before you go
The walking adds up to about 72 minutes, so allow two and a half to three hours with time at each stop. The route is paved and mostly flat, gently downhill from the hill of Sainte-Geneviève toward the river. The longest stretch, about a kilometer and a quarter, runs between stops four and five. The third leg crosses the Jardin du Luxembourg, which is open in the daytime only, so after dark go round it by rue de Vaugirard instead. Two stops are best seen open: Deyrolle, a working shop, and the Musée Rodin, which needs a ticket. Check both before you go. A late afternoon start works well: you see the shop and the museum by day, and reach the river as the light turns golden. Polidor, at stop three, is a working restaurant if you want to eat where Gil met Hemingway. The nearest stations at the start are Cardinal Lemoine on metro line 10 and Luxembourg on the RER B. The walk ends close to Invalides, on metro lines 8 and 13 and the RER C.
Toilets and water
6 toilets near the route, 6 free11 drinking fountains