Hôtel du Nord opens its doors for Heritage Days 2026: free guided tours on 19 and 20 September

“Atmosphere, atmosphere…” The setting of Arletty’s famous line can be visited this weekend. Hôtel du Nord, at 102 quai de Jemmapes, is offering free guided tours on 19 and 20 September 2026 for the European Heritage Days, with no reservation needed. The former forty-room hotel, saved from demolition in the late 1980s, is now a brasserie whose facade is protected as a historic monument.

☰Contents

1. Nine free time slots, from 18 to 20 September
2. Forty small rooms, then a novel in 1929
3. The 1938 film was shot in Billancourt
4. 1989, the facade saved from demolition
5. The Peninsula and Le Louis also open their doors
6. Our perspective

Nine free time slots, from 18 to 20 September

The official programme listing announces a “guided tour of the legendary Hôtel du Nord”, fitting into the national theme of this 43rd edition, the heritage of photography. On Saturday 19 September, tours take place from 10:00 to 10:30, 10:30 to 11:30 and 14:30 to 17:30; on Sunday 20, from 10:30 to 11:00, 11:00 to 11:30 and 14:30 to 17:30. The three slots on Friday 18 are reserved for school groups as part of the “Look Up!” initiative.

Admission is free and without reservation, with accessibility for visitors with reduced mobility. Visitors can discover the room reconstructed after the film, the portraits and photographs of Alexandre Trauner hung on the walls, and the terrace overlooking the canal. The venue is served by the Jacques Bonsergent station on line 5, as well as République.

Forty small rooms, then a novel in 1929

The building opened in the early 1910s as a furnished hotel: forty modest rooms rented to lock-keepers, factory workers and the unemployed of the canal. In 1923, Émile and Louise Dabit took over its management. Their son Eugène, a painter and writer, used it as inspiration for a 1929 novel published by Denoël, Hôtel du Nord, chronicling the house’s tenants. He died in 1936 in Sevastopol at the age of 37, without ever seeing the film.

The 1938 film was shot in Billancourt

Marcel Carné adapted the novel in 1938, starring Arletty, Louis Jouvet, Annabella and Jean-Pierre Aumont, with dialogue by Henri Jeanson. Nothing was filmed on quai de Jemmapes: the hotel, the lock and the footbridge were entirely reconstructed by Alexandre Trauner at the Billancourt studios. It is there that Jouvet says to Arletty “I need a change of atmosphere, and my atmosphere is you”, to which she famously replies “Atmosphere! Atmosphere! Do I look like an atmosphere?”. The line does not appear in the novel.

The film turned the real building into a pilgrimage site. The current brasserie has been redecorated to mirror Trauner’s set design, and it features in the series Emily in Paris, bringing in a new clientele from across the Atlantic.

1989, the facade saved from demolition

The hotel closed in the 1970s and a demolition permit was refused in 1983. A housing project was proposed the following year, and Jean-Claude Brialy, Arletty and Alexandre Trauner led a campaign, culminating in a demonstration outside the building in June 1989. On 15 June 1989, the facade and roof edge were designated as historic monuments. A residential apartment building was subsequently constructed behind it.

The ground floor reopened in January 1996 as a bistro seating around a hundred guests, featuring an interior designed by James Arch, a former assistant of Carné. Since then, the address has been operated by the La Rétropolitaine group, headed by actor and restorer Florian Cadiou alongside Carlos Manuel Eisler, Justin Boucher and Sébastien Crozier, who are also behind Le Bar 1905 and Vins de Pyrénées. Live jazz is hosted on Friday and Saturday evenings.

The Peninsula and Le Louis also open their doors

Few luxury hotels are participating this year, as several Parisian palaces are currently undergoing renovations. The Peninsula Paris is opening its doors for the first time: seven 45-minute guided tours, four on Saturday and three on Sunday afternoon, upon registration and subject to availability, within the former Majestic hotel which served as the headquarters of UNESCO from 1946 to 1958 and the site where the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973.

In the Yvelines department, the MGallery Le Louis Versailles Château hotel is offering self-guided tours on Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00 at 2 bis avenue de Paris, as part of an initiative involving nearly sixty properties from the collection across France. The European theme of this edition, “Architectural Heritage in Danger: Reviving, Resisting, Reimagining”, ties in closely with the history of quai de Jemmapes.

Our perspective

Hôtel du Nord has not been a hotel for half a century, but it remains one of the rare places where pre-war Parisian working-class hospitality can still be felt. The visit is worth it as much for what it reveals about the Paris of lock-keepers as for the myth of the film, which was never actually shot here.

The choice of a photographic theme is spot on: Trauner’s prints hanging in the dining room are the true collector’s piece, even more so than the reconstructed decor. We recommend going on a Saturday morning, before the canal gets crowded.

Practical information

• Hôtel du Nord, 102 quai de Jemmapes, 75010 Paris · metro Jacques Bonsergent (line 5) or République
• Free guided tours on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September 2026 · full programme on journeesdupatrimoine.culture.gouv.fr
• Brasserie open the rest of the year · hoteldunord.org

Photo credit Wikimedia Commons · Hôtel du Nord