Not knowing if we’d be able to get into the Louvre without waiting in line for hours, we decided to do something completely different and look for places where the movie “Midnight in Paris” was filmed. If you haven’t yet seen this film, go see it. There may be some spoilers in my description of our day. If you have seen the film, you may recognize the places I’m writing about here.

What would Paris have looked like in the 1920s?

First stop, the restaurant, named Polidor, where the main character Gil found Ernest Hemingway. It was on a little side street and no one seemed to know where the street is, but we knew the closest Metro stop, so we wandered around and eventually found it. Sean immediately recognized the place. Though our plan was to have breakfast there, they don’t serve any breakfast food, so we took our photos (including ones or their pictures of Woody Allen onsite) and moved on.

Next stop was a break for breakfast: Croque Madame. Yum! Pretty heavy as the starting meals the day, but the accumulation diet continues.

Continuing on our tour, we needed to find the bookstore where Gil browsed. We didn’t know it’s a well-known bookstore, but it is. It’s called Shakespeare & Company and many famous writers have been there. Sean bought one of Hemingway’s books here as a great souvenir, especially as the book cover is Hemingway in front of that bookstore and the book is about Paris.

Back on the Metro to get to the closest stop to the location where Gil was picked up by the car to take him back in time. I figured that for me this would be the most identifiable place. We think we found the right spot, but I had thought there were more stairs, so I’m unsure. However, regardless, we did find a beautiful place with a quaint church.

It turns out we did find the exact right spot!  🙂

You can almost see the old car coming up the road to take you to the 1920s!

Refueling with a delicious pastry

Our last stop for our tour was the place where Gil bought the Cole Porter record from the girl that he later fell for. It was an antique market a bit out of the main areas that most tourists visit. Another Metro and we found an entirely different side of Paris. No tourists, less affluent, but certainly interesting. Of course, the way we’ve been taking the rain with us and finding places closed on the days we visit, we were not surprised to find this too to be closed. but since we were there, we chose to walk around the empty market with gated shops to find the exact right stall. It took us a long time, but we again found it (maybe?) and again took our photos.

“So, can you tell me, where is the record booth that Midnight in Paris was filmed?”

Ok, so we were wrong in this case about the corner, but it was the right market.

I needed to buy more Metro tickets as our pack of 10 had run out, but the guy at the booth was apparently on break (though he was sitting there, he wouldn’t help anyone), and I didn’t know how to use the ticket machine. We were being hassled by guys wanting to sell us the tickets, but knowing they were illegal, we didn’t want to. However, since I couldn’t purchase them any other way, we caved and bit the bullet, buying them for €0.20 less each than the regular tickets. We were later to find ourselves lucky.

The top one is a real ticket; the bottom one fake. Can you see why?

Back to the hotel to gather our luggage, stop briefly for a coffee at our morning café place to catch up with the free wi-fi, then off to the Metro to catch our train to Munich. Once again we had to buy our Metro tickets and this guy in the booth was helpful and showed me how to purchase them from the machine. Good thing because as we approached our Metro train, security was there checking tickets. The fake or stolen ones are missing numbers (I had noted that when we bought them, but they worked to get us through), so they are obvious and I’m glad we didn’t have to deal with that!

So many stairs

In order to get another full day in Paris–otherwise we would have had to leave Paris at 7:30 that morning–we had chosen to take an overnight train in a sleeper car. It’s funny how the world works as our travel companions in that car were a couple from Newmarket area of Toronto and a German naturopath. The man, Mike, of the couple was born in Montreal and is a Royal Roads alumni. The woman, Anne, was interested in improving her health and wants to know of someone good in her area (luckily I now know a bunch of NDs around Toronto because of my Germany training!). The German ND, Bea, and I have a ton in common. We seemed to be on the same page for every piece of advice we gave Anne. Bea was really lovely and I will definitely stay in touch. She wants us to visit her in Stuttgart, so maybe if I do return for the Pascoe training next year, I will do just that!

How amazing that I would meet this wonderful ND!

We were the last car up and still talking, eventually arranging our beds so that we could go to sleep, 3 bunks each side. Mike had already warned us about his snoring and he really did sound like a bear as he had described. Regardless, I managed to get some sleep, on and off. Sean had less sleep than me as I can sleep almost anywhere. Bea left the train one stop earlier than us, so I missed her departure, but we had already said our goodbyes.