Read, Travel, Read

If you have followed some of my earlier posts, you know I have started to search out books and stories set in the locations I plan to visit.  This time around, I visited San Francisco.  

Picking a book or two of fiction set in the location you will visit turns out to add layers to he experience. This time, it was San Francisco and two mysteries.  One related the tale of the murder of a man so obsessed with Sherlock Holmes that he renovated two stories of his townhouse as if they were in 19th century London.  Even more interesting, homicide detectives discover that he had found a story for his collection purportedly written by A. Conan Doyle during an actual visit to SF in 1924.  His body was found in the Marin Headlands in the exact location in which the fictional victim in his story was found.  The other novel is a story of blackmail, politics and murders among people at the top of the political machine in San Francisco.  

I read the story about the Sherlock Holmes collector before I visited SF, and learned the history of the Marin Headlands, where the Golden Gate Bridge lands after crossing the Golden Strait.  I also learned about  Russian Hill, and other neighborhoods in the city.  Once there, we rode the hop on-hop off tour bus across the GGB, and cable cars up and down Telegraph Hill and walked Fisherman's Wharf, all of which were part of the story.  It gave me a small edge on the sense of the place, but there was little that made it personal.     

After coming home, I began the second book and found it chock full of references to places I had seen--Haight-Ashbury, Fisherman's Wharf, the Sausalito Ferry, Nob Hill, CIty Hall, the federal court house and more.  Now, I have a story or a scene associated with many of these places in my head.  Once again, the trip is enriched by sandwiching it between the two books I read.  I have a story associated with many of the places I saw.  I guess some day in my old age, I may even confuse the two and "recollect" a much more exciting story of my visit--not that the place needs to be enhanced--it was a great visit.    

We have only one trip planned for certain the rest of this year--to St. Louis.  Now the challenge here will be to really find a story that enhances that trip, since I know that city very well already.  I am thinking something historical may work, but I am starting the search with an open mind.