We love libraries. We love everything about them: the smell of the books, the storehouse of knowledge, the quietness, the understated majesty and mystique of words flowing through pages and time into people’s heads.
And then put a library in a beautiful old palace…well, then, you’ve got some magic. The palace, in this case, is the 19th century Wenckheim Palace, the Budapest residence of an Austro-Hungarian nobleman.
In today’s special Sunday blog, we suggest that anyone’s to-do list for Budapest include the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library. It’s a real, working library of 1.1 million volumes and with students and the merely curious poring over volumes and scribbling notes, so you’ll have to be quiet when you visit. Look for the visitor’s desk and pay the couple of dollars for a tour ticket.
Then proceed to the fourth floor for an hour or so of silent ogling.
