After a difficult time trying (and not succeeding) to decipher the menu for lunch, we ended up eating good old fashioned and unbeatable hot dogs and chips. We then headed off to the Strahov Monastery Library. After being shown the correct building, by a grumpy lady who appeared to be just staring at her computer, we finally arrived.

Once in the reception area, we were given a “photography pass” and proceeded to head up the stairs to the much anticipated Library.

However, we were greeted by an odd sight! There were large glass cabinets outlining the room which were filled with dead sea-creatures (not what we were expecting). After reading the explanation sheet we discovered that it was the Strahov cabinet of curiosities, which was bought from the estate of Baron Karej Jan Eben in 1798. The cabinet’s collections reflect the Rudolfine Renaissance and its interests in weird and mysterious conceptions of the beginning of natural sciences.
These cabinets did not only contain creepy looking dead animals but also beautiful books – thankfully not in the same cabinets as the animals. These books were held in intricate wooden cabinets from the 18th century and currently hold books from late Gothic to the 19th century. Then came the Library...

As lovers of books we were already very excited about seeing the Library, known as The Theological Hall, and from what we had heard, it sounded like a very large number of books. But nothing could have prepared us for the magnitude of leather bound books adding up to a staggering total of 20,000 volumes.

This huge two-storey room, filled floor to ceiling with books, was not enough apparently as there was a second, no less impressive, room (only one storey this time) filled with books. The ceiling was also painted like some of the ceilings we had already seen in churches – it looked as though we were staring up into the sky towards light fluffy clouds and a blue sky. There were not only books in this library, but an old globe and a contraption that allowed the reader to read five books at once.

These magnificent libraries were not the only things that caught your eye. There was, at the end of one of the hallways, a painting (painted on the wall) which gave the appearance of the corridor going on and on.

After being completely awe-struck by the libraries, we came out by the gift shop which, unsurprisingly, we went in.

Bronwen Prosser and Emily Glazebrook