Before Sunset: Paris in Real Time

The film opens inside Shakespeare and Company, the English-language bookshop at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, where Jesse is giving a promotional talk about his novel and three journalists are quizzing him. As he finishes, Céline appears. She has lived in Paris for some years, visits the shop often, and saw the poster announcing his visit. The bookshop was opened in 1951 by George Whitman on the Left Bank, on the site of a 16th-century monastery, and more than 30,000 people have slept in beds tucked between its shelves.

Visitor guidance: The shop is at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, just steps from the Seine and Notre-Dame.

With an hour left before Jesse must leave for the airport, the two decide to roam Paris. From the river they walk along rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, an old street at the crossing of two Roman roads, and turn into rue Galande, passing the Studio Galande, an arthouse cinema known for showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show since 1975. The camera trails them as if a documentary crew were following, though the film's geography is deceptively tricky. Rue Galande is under 200 metres long and still looks medieval, with a curving line, narrow pavements and cobbles.

Visitor guidance: The Studio Galande cinema is at no. 42.

In one cut the couple have leapt across the Seine to the Marais, in the 4th arrondissement. Heading north, they turn right into rue Charlemagne as Céline talks about her environmental work, then slip through the tiny passage of rue Éginhard. The street is only three metres wide, paved, with a fountain post and a central gutter. It is named after Einhard, the historian of Charlemagne.

Another cut takes them far to the east, into the 11th arrondissement, and to a bar: Le Pure Café at 14 rue Jean Macé. Here the walk slows to a table and a conversation, and as they chat they realise they were both in New York at the same time. The film plays in real time, so every minute at the table is a minute taken from the hour Jesse has before his flight.

Visitor guidance: Le Pure Café is at 14 rue Jean Macé, 75011 Paris.

From the café it is not far south to avenue Daumesnil and the raised garden path to which Céline takes Jesse, up a staircase to the Promenade Plantée. The park is 4.7 km long and follows the former Vincennes railway line, which stopped running on 14 December 1969. Inaugurated in 1993, it was the first project in the world to turn an elevated old railway into an urban garden. The cast and crew filmed through one of the hottest summers on record.

Location precision: The park is 4.7 km long and the film enters by the staircase on avenue Daumesnil; the pin marks the park, not that exact staircase.

Visitor guidance: Stairways and elevators lead up to the viaduct at the western end.

Their old feelings slowly rekindle as they walk, and then they take a bateau mouche down the Seine. They board at Quai de la Tournelle, just behind Notre-Dame, and leave the boat at Quai Henri IV, on the Right Bank, where a car is waiting. Quai de la Tournelle is a riverwalk on the south bank of the Seine, and La Tour d'Argent, on the quai, claims to be the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the city.

Location precision: The pin marks Quai de la Tournelle as a whole; the exact boarding point on the quay is not named.

Visitor guidance: A typical sightseeing cruise on the Seine lasts about one hour.

Jesse convinces his driver to drop Céline at her apartment, even though she insists he should not miss his flight, and he walks her to her door. In the film the address is 10 rue des Petites-Écuries, but it was shot in Cour de l'Étoile d'Or, off rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. There he persuades her to play on guitar the waltz she wrote about their encounter in Vienna, then puts on Nina Simone's "Just in Time" while she dances and he watches, the pair acknowledging he will miss his flight.

Location precision: Céline's flat is at 10 rue des Petites-Écuries in the story; the pin marks the private courtyard where the scene was filmed.