Heartstopper Season 2 used Paris as its primary location for the school trip episodes. As someone who has lived in Paris for ten years, I watched those episodes with a specific kind of attention. I then walked all thirteen filming locations to check what was real and what was not.
The Pont des Arts scene, where Charlie and Tao attach a friendship lock to the bridge, is real. The bridge is real. The custom of attaching locks is real, though the city has been removing them for years due to structural weight concerns. What the show does not mention is that the padlock custom was largely driven by tourists and is not a Parisian tradition.
The ice cream scene at Place Jean-Baptiste Clement in Montmartre is one of the most accurate location choices in the series. The place is a small square in upper Montmartre that most tourists never reach. The boulangerie on the corner is real and good. The Rue de l’Abreuvoir nearby, with its pink house and garden wall, is genuinely one of the most beautiful streets in Paris.
Dalida’s square is where Tara and Darcy take a selfie in the show. In reality this is the Place Dalida, named for the Egyptian-Italian singer who lived in Montmartre for decades. There is a bronze bust of Dalida in the square. Local legend says touching the bust grants a wish before the end of the year. The bust is heavily worn where her face and hands are, which tells you something about how seriously people take this.
The Shakespeare and Company bookshop scene, where Isaac reads at the end of the episode, is real and accurately depicted. The shop is on the left bank across from Notre-Dame and has been there since 1951. If you buy a book there, ask the staff to stamp it with the shop’s seal. It is a small thing and it is worth doing.
One detail I want to correct: the metro station shown in the series does not exist as depicted. The signage and the layout are fictional composites. The real Paris metro has a specific visual identity that the production only partially replicated. If you are planning to navigate Paris using the Heartstopper metro as a reference, do not.
