What I Learned in France (Or, In a Previous Life I Must Have Been a Stonecarver Who Wrote Existential French Mystery Novels in a Parisian Café)

Having recently returned from a trip to Paris, I'm forgoing our chosen Pens topic in favor of sharing some thoughts about France.

I first visited France as a child. I was fascinated by the architectural art. There's something about those enigmatic stone gargoyles watching over the city of Paris that inspires the imagination. Maybe that's why for most of my childhood I wanted to be an architect, and I wrote my first mystery stories in elementary school.


Paris has never let me down when it comes to mystery. While backpacking through Europe after college, the day I visited the Louvre, thieves stole a Corot painting from the museum. They cut the painting from its frame with a razor blade.

If you've ever been to the Louvre, you know it's huge. This small Corot painting was in an unguarded room. When the museum guards realized it was gone, they shut the museum -- trapping thousands of us inside.


What stood out to me most that day was the fact that they didn't search each and every one of us. They were going to have a riot on their hands with the huge number of tourists trapped inside, many of whom had flights to catch. I was on the mezzanine level, underneath the glass pyramid and above the ground floor lobby, so I could see people from the lobby making their way up the spiral staircase and being searched. After a few hours, we were released.

The painting was never found.


Another interesting fact from that day at the Louvre was that a friend who I had yet to meet was also trapped in the museum that day. When we later met, we found her in one of my crowd photographs from that afternoon.

When I decided to write a mystery novel, of course there would be plenty of art and antiquities theft involved. And one of the potential love interests for the heroine, history professor Jaya Jones, is an art historian. I've written mysteries involving art intrigue in San Francisco, Scotland, and India, and I've got an idea for France coming up later in the series. (I need to finish writing the India pirate book first, so wish me luck!)

My latest trip to Paris started off in a more mellow fashion. It was inspiring for its simple pleasures. We enjoyed the good life taking long walks along market streets and eating leisurely meals while drinking carafes of wine at sidewalk cafes.


Over one such laid-back meal, my better half turned to me and said, "Why isn't life like this at home?" It was a good question. It was a simple meal at a casual cafe, but there was something special about it. Not just that we had traveled to Europe to get it. Carafes of both water and wine sat on the table. The salad was dressed simply with good olive old and vinegar. The baguette was fresh from the oven. The waiter didn't rush any of the patrons (although he did switch to English after hearing my horribly accented French, thereby not letting me practice); in fact, it was damn near impossible to get the bill at the end of any meal. I resolved to take some of that je-ne-sais-quoi home with me. A meal doesn't need to be complicated to be exquisite, but we needed to slow down to enjoy it.

Well-nourished, I set out to climb the steps to visit my old friends the gargoyles at Notre Dame...



... and stopped by the scene of that old theft.


It might have ended up a relaxing if somewhat uneventful trip, had it not been for the ash cloud.

The plan was to take the Eurostar train across the chunnel to England to spend a weekend in London before flying home. The first part of the plan worked perfectly. Unfortunately, our airline hadn't managed to work out their schedule of planes due to the new routing based on the approaching ash cloud. After a day's delay, we departed, only to find it took 42 hours in transit to get back to San Francisco.

Now that I'm home and well-rested, I'm ready for my next adventure. I think I'll go pick a salad from the garden and get back to work on that mystery novel.

--Gigi