If Belle is your favourite Disney character and you have a passionate love of reading, then you’ll be absolutely desperate to visit this breathtaking library that appears to have been lifted straight from Beauty and the Beast.
Belle’s library was the envy of many. Floor-to-ceiling books? Yes please. It’s the stuff bibliophiles’ dreams are made of, yet for the vast majority, it will remain precisely that — a dream.
However, just because you can’t have it within your own four walls doesn’t mean you can’t witness it in person, and that’s where this truly extraordinary sight comes into its own.
George and Crissa Prieto posed the question on Instagram as to whether this could be the “world’s most enchanting library”.
George asked Crissa whether she wanted to go see the Beauty and the Beast library, but she said it was “not a real place” and “only in the movie”. How wrong she was…
What followers of the Instagram reel witnessed next left them completely speechless, as this library is perhaps even more magnificent than the one conceived for the Disney film.
Having grown up in a modest town offering little to someone of Belle’s spirit and curiosity, books become her refuge from an often mundane existence.
Throughout the film, she yearned for adventures akin to those she encountered in her reading, perpetually buried in a book. This, however, led the townspeople to regard her as somewhat peculiar, as reading was far from considered ‘cool’ in those times. But where exactly is this library?
It is the Admont Abbey Library in Austria, the largest monastic library in the world, measuring an impressive 230ft long, 46ft wide, and 42ft tall.
Once referred to as the ‘eighth wonder of the world,’ the pair described walking inside as akin to stepping into the real-life library from Beauty and the Beast.
Completed in 1776, it houses over 70,000 books and is widely regarded as one of the most breathtaking libraries on the planet.
On TripAdvisor, one visitor wrote, “It is the most beautiful library I have ever visited,” and it is plain to see why.
In the comments section, one user remarked: “That is so beautiful… do you know in Portugal there is one similar to that one?”
Another woman enquired about its location, to which came the reply: “In Mafra National Palace. It’s just beautiful”.