Amélie: Montmartre and Beyond

Amélie leaves home at 18 and becomes a waitress at the Café des 2 Moulins in Montmartre, which is staffed and frequented by a collection of eccentrics. The real café stands at 15 rue Lepic, on the corner of rue Cauchois — a lovely art deco room and the location most visitors want to see. Later in the story, after her game with Nino, she arranges to meet him here, then panics and denies who she is. The film shot from 2 March to 7 July 2000.

Visitor guidance: Café at 15 Rue Lepic, on the corner of Rue Cauchois.

Among Amélie's simple pleasures are dipping her hand into grain sacks, cracking crème brûlée with a spoon, and skipping stones along the Canal Saint-Martin. The canal is real enough: 4.6 kilometres long, connecting the Canal de l'Ourcq to the river Seine. The pin marks a stretch of its banks; the film never fixes the exact spot where her stones skip.

Location precision: Amélie's stone-skipping spot isn't named; the pin marks a stretch of the Canal Saint-Martin's banks.

On 31 August 1997, amid news of Diana's death, a startled Amélie drops a perfume-stopper that dislodges a wall tile in her bathroom — behind it, a metal box of childhood memorabilia hidden by a boy decades earlier. Round the corner is her neighbourhood grocery, Au Marché de la Butte at rue des Trois Frères and rue Androuet, where Amélie plays practical jokes on Collignon, the nasty greengrocer, until a delighted Lucien takes charge at the grocery stand. Her apartment entrance is just along at 56 rue des Trois Frères.

Crossing the wooden Pont des Arts, Amélie is imbued with a surge of love. The bridge is real: a pedestrian crossing over the Seine linking the Institut de France and the central square of the Palais du Louvre.

Visitor guidance: Pedestrian bridge between the Institut de France and the Palais du Louvre.

Amélie escorts a blind man to the Métro, describing the street scenes as they go. Their walk ends at Lamarck-Caulaincourt, a station on Line 12 in the Montmartre district of the 18th arrondissement, with a picturesque single entrance and two staircases climbing up the hill — the film's beautiful Métro station with the double staircase.

Visitor guidance: Line 12 station; the double-staircase entrance rises toward Montmartre.

Nino collects discarded strangers' photographs from passport photo booths, and when he drops his album in the street, Amélie retrieves it. The narrator announces her arrival at the Gare de l'Est photo booth, and in its ticket hall she solves the riddle of the mystery man. The facade on screen is really the Gare du Nord: its NORD lettering was digitally altered to EST to match the narration.

Visitor guidance: A main-line station; the Gare du Nord seen on screen is a short walk north-west.

Amélie's cat-and-mouse game with Nino around Paris includes an assignation that has him following blue arrows painted on the steps in front of the Sacré-Cœur. In the end the two begin a relationship and she finds happiness. The basilica stands at the summit of the butte of Montmartre and is the second most popular tourist destination in Paris after the Eiffel Tower.

Visitor guidance: Steps in front of the basilica at the summit of Montmartre; expect crowds.