Go: San Francisco & Seattle, ‘The Language of Flowers’ Tour
The Language of Flowers setting is in San Francisco. Throughout Victoria’s childhood and young adulthood she has spent time or lived in a lot of different parts of the city.
She talks about Duboce Park, the Mission District, Pacific Heights, North Beach, the Marina, Russian Hill, Palo Alto, and Fillmore Street. She remembers going over the Golden Gate Bridge past the flower farms, dry fields, and farmhouses, then down a dusty lane to Elizabeth’s farmhouse.
Walk the city with your book club friends and retrace Victoria’s steps. Here are three particularly special places…
Golden Gate Park
Elizabeth is taken by the seriousness with which Grant regards flowers and their meanings. She spends hours comparing definitions. She goes to Golden Gate Park and fills her pockets with smooth stones from a display in front of the Japanese Teahouse and uses them as paperweights to compare dictionary entries flower by flower.
McKinley Square
Victoria has gathered flowers from neighborhoods close to the Gathering House. She has fourteen pots in her bedroom garden that she transplants to Mckinley Square during her final weeks at the Gathering House.
McKinley Square is a small city park at the top of Potrero Hill, located at a peak with a clear view in every direction. In the fall McKinley Square explodes with verbena, goldenrod, chrysanthemum, and roses. This is where Victoria made a bouquet that spoke prayers, truth and an unacquainted heart to show Renata, and hopefully get hired at her flower shop.
The San Francisco Flower Market/Mart (on Brannon Street)
This is the market where Elizabeth brings Victoria when she is ten years old, then nearly ten years later she comes back with Renata and meets Grant.
Note: Coincidentally, the TV Series The Killing which I paired with The Language of Flowers, takes place in Seattle, which also boasts a stunning flower market at Pike’s Place Market. The show was actually filmed in Vancouver- but it’s never a bad idea to go check out Seattle and see some of the places referred to like Discovery Park, Ballard Bridge, Gas Works Park, and Aurora Bridge. After a day of exploring, get a coffee at THE Original Starbucks and walk across the street and enjoy the flowers at Pike’s Place!
BUNDLES WITH:
READ: “The Language of Flowers” a moving novel that explores how we communicate after trauma
WATCH: ‘The Killing’; Crime thriller TV series from Netflix
