The National Library of Vienna is jaw droppingly beautiful.
It’s collection houses 7.4 million items and its oldest book dates from 1368.
Look at the ceiling……
The library collection was started in the late 1300’s.
The current building was constructed in 1722.
Rather nice place to read and contemplate, n’est pas?
I am so there…..
thank you for sharing this visual treat with us!
So glad you appreciated it. I was in nerd heaven!
I am enjoying your pictures so much, especially from places I have don’t know very well. I wanted to share this with more folks and could not resist the astrological clock.
Again…amazing what craftsmen used to do for so many years of their life, knowing it would be engulfed in all the baroque fixtures and fittings and sensory overload. I spent so much time in cathedrals when I lived in Italy and traveled through Europe, with my mouth hanging open like some slack-jawed hick gone to town for the first time. Inhale some of that glimmer for me, please.
Later…
Ok. You know how I feel. I am definitely, “a slack jawed hick,” no matter how often I travel through Europe. We just don’t have this stuff at “the holler.” lol & thanks for getting it….
During all my museum and cathedral crawling the one thing that stuck with me was that someone spent a good deal of their creative life working on these monuments to excess. That craft is for the most part gone, so we go to places like this to experience a small part of that mentality.
Later…
Once again you have posted some lovely pictures,thanks.
Ranu
Easy to take photos of incredible places. Thank you!
Spectacular!
YES! Thank you~
Can you imagine how much information is captured in those volumes. It takes my breath away. The colors are dramatic….wow
Here’s my fantasy, and it is serious…..just let me wander here alone. I won’t touch or pick up anything. Come back and get me….. in a few hours, preferably days, I’ll bring food.
Can you imagine spending the night in here?
Old books, next to nature, are the most valuable things on the planet.
Cheers to you my friend.
I think I would be content in that library for a decade or two! – visited your other posts to…had a laugh at Paris’ street sign. Lovely photos, color and black and white. Thanks for letting us see through your lens.
Safe travels. Cheers.
Oh yes, it is the library that stole my heart. Since I love to read and this incredible building was built to save books. I think old books are our greatest manmade treasures. I’ll hang out there with you for a decade or two……
So vibrant! It would be fantastic to see the place full of books like this.
With all the excess expense spent on royalty over the centuries, it is good to see such expense over the centuries being spent on honoring books. My favorite posessions! Thank you!
WOW
Yep! Thank you.
Beautiful photos. Thanks for sharing.
Oh the history of humans and books. The best of the best of us my friend and you have written such!
Why thank you!
Overwhelming!
Yes!
Wow that is a gorgeous library! I would love to be there to see it! Thank you for sharing such awesome pics!!!!! Very vibrant colors! Hugz!
So glad people resonate with it because I fell in love. Thank you!
That is so amazing. I can’t come up with words to adequately describe the beauty.
Yes. Thank you for understanding this. I can’t either. Cheers & thanks~
the colors and architecture are stunning, it would almost be over whelming I would think…
Yes. Exactly! Thank you Heather. I am not surprised that you would feel as I did……
Oh my golly gosh; how would you be able to concentrate on reading? Too much else to look at.
Yes there is so much negative in the world……and then there is such enduring, incredible beauty. People from 1358 wrote books by hand, by quill, and this library saved and enshrined them. This is the way books should be treated.
And, when you think how times have sometimes been so difficult throughout history, and yet still these things have been saved, it becomes an even more amazing story.
That library looks spectacular. I would need many hours to settle down with a good book, too many gorgeous distractions to admire!
Hey Halim! So Good to hear from you. Can’t you just imagine being alone in this place for a few hours. For me, nirvana!! Thanks for checking in and cheers to you my friend~
Oh, gosh…
Yep. It’s the shrine for the books, reminded me of Cleopatra’s library in Alexandria, burned to the ground of course. Just a place book lovers immediately want to live in…..Thank you for getting this!
Just stunning Cindy, how could you ever concentrate on a book?
Let me be one of the caretakers of the place and I definitely would! In my dreams………
Beautiful !!!! Cindy 🙂 *Cynthia
Yes indeed! Thank you for the appreciation!