Emily Cooper is a marketing executive from Chicago. Her company sends her to Paris to bring an American point of view to Savoir, a luxury marketing agency run by the formidable Sylvie. Her boyfriend Doug is back home, and French office life is a struggle from day one. But she has a little room above a pretty square, a bakery downstairs, a chef for a neighbor, and the whole city to win over. That's Emily in Paris, the Netflix series that began in 2020, with Lily Collins as Emily, Ashley Park as her friend Mindy, Lucas Bravo as Gabriel the chef and Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu as Sylvie. This is an unofficial fan walk, not made with or endorsed by Netflix or the show's producers. Instead of following strict episode order, we'll spend a day in Emily's Paris: home, a morning run, a café, the bridges where she makes her calls and her choices, the office door, and the garden where she met her best friend. I'll tell you which season each scene comes from, and what's real behind it. Spoilers throughout. It's one of our self-guided walking tours, about 4.6 kilometers from Place de l'Estrapade to the Palais-Royal garden.

Before you set off

The walking adds up to about 64 minutes, so allow two to two and a half hours with time at each stop and a coffee. The route is paved and gently downhill, from the hill behind the Panthéon down to the Seine, then flat on the Right Bank. The two gardens on the route, the Luxembourg and the Palais-Royal, close at dusk, so walk in the daytime or go round them in the evening. Mornings are lovely on Emily's square. Please remember that the first stop and the street beside it are where people live. Keep your voice down, don't block doorways, and don't photograph residents. The Café de Flore is a working café, so check before you go if you want a table. The start is a short walk from Cardinal Lemoine on metro line 10 or Luxembourg on the RER B. The walk ends near the Palais-Royal-Musée du Louvre station, on metro lines 1 and 7.

Place de l'Estrapade

You're on Place de l'Estrapade, a small square just behind the Panthéon. Look for building number 1. Just off the square, on rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, you'll see a bakery and a restaurant side by side, with a café across the street.

This is Emily's home, and it appears in every season of the show. Number 1 is her building. She lives on the fifth floor, in a small room under the roof. In season 1 she comes down to discover the Boulangerie Moderne, at 16 rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, and buys her first Paris pastries there. Next to it, at number 18, is Terra Nera, the outside of Gabriel's restaurant. The restaurant changes its name across the seasons, and the kitchen scenes were filmed on a studio set. But don't let anyone tell you it's a fake front. Terra Nera is a real, working restaurant. And at number 19, the Café de la Nouvelle Mairie is where Emily and Mindy have breakfast.

Now look up. The great dome of the Panthéon rises over the square, a minute's walk away. In season 1, Emily stands there on the phone to Doug in Chicago, and their long-distance relationship comes to an end.

The square's name has a darker story. An estrapade was a punishment. A person was tied up, hoisted high, and dropped, stopped short of the ground. It was used on deserting soldiers and on thieves, and in the 1500s on Protestants, and it was carried out here until 1687. This pretty square is named after it.

The show brought something new: crowds. In April 2023 the Associated Press reported on the effect. Tourists stood photographing Emily's building. The bakery's owner, Thierry Rabineau, said business was up. A resident said the area had become ultra-touristy. And graffiti reading "Emily Not Welcome" was reported on the building in 2023, which fans then photographed too. Both sides have a point. So enjoy the corner, buy something from the bakery, and leave the doorways clear.

Time for Emily's morning run. Walk west along rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, cross rue Saint-Jacques into rue Malebranche and follow the side streets to boulevard Saint-Michel. Enter the Jardin du Luxembourg and head for the big pond in front of the palace. About eleven minutes.

Jardin du Luxembourg

The Luxembourg Palace and gardens, Paris

You're in the Jardin du Luxembourg, by the Grand Bassin, the big octagonal pond. In front of you is the Luxembourg Palace. Along the raised terraces around you stand rows of statues.

In season 1, early in Emily's stay, she goes jogging through this garden. She stops at one of the statues in front of the palace to take a photo. It's a very Emily moment: Paris, seen through her phone. Pick a statue on the terrace and you're standing in her shot.

The garden has a royal start. It was created from 1612 for Marie de' Medici, the widow of King Henri IV. Today it covers 23 hectares, and it holds about a hundred statues, monuments and fountains, so whichever statue you picked, there are plenty more. The palace in front of you is the seat of the French Senate, and the Senate still manages this garden. So when Emily jogs past, she's running through the senators' front yard.

Look around at the people running and strolling here. Emily arrives as the outsider in a city of routines, and this garden is one of the places where she starts to find her own.

Later in season 1, Emily treats herself to dinner alone at one of the most famous cafés on the Left Bank, and that's where we're going next. Leave the garden by its north gates beside the palace, onto rue de Vaugirard, and take rue Bonaparte north to boulevard Saint-Germain. Turn left. The café is on the corner of rue Saint-Benoît. About fifteen minutes.

Café de Flore

You're outside the Café de Flore, at 172 boulevard Saint-Germain. Look across rue Saint-Benoît and you'll see Les Deux Magots. Just beyond them stands the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

In season 1, Emily has dinner here alone. It takes some nerve in a new city, and it pays off. Here she meets Thomas, a professor of philosophy who teaches semiotics, and he becomes her first Paris fling. It's brief, but it's a sign that Emily is starting to live in Paris, not just work in it.

The real café has a much longer story. It opened around 1887 and was named after a statue of Flora, the goddess of flowers. Around 1913 the poet Guillaume Apollinaire made it his editorial office. In 1939 a man named Paul Boubal bought it. Then came the war and the German occupation, and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir came here to work, drawn by the big stove in the middle of the room. Picture the two of them writing at these tables, as close to that stove as they could get.

So when Emily sits down here with her phone, she's taking a seat in a long tradition of writers and thinkers who made the Flore their office. Thomas, the philosopher, fits right in.

From here our day jumps ahead in time. Next, the bridge where Emily faces a big decision at the end of season 2. Walk east along the boulevard, turn left into rue de Buci, then follow rue Dauphine north to the river and onto the Pont Neuf. Head for the statue of a king on horseback. About fourteen minutes.