Library images

Law Library of the University of Zurich, Switzerland

I just stumbled across a cool list: 10 of the Most Beautiful Libraries collected from countries all across the globe. I think the author makes a good point that in addition to the traditional museums and monuments, libraries are a great place to visit when traveling. There's no doubt they can tell you a lot about a place, and they are sometimes very cool buildings.

Personally I love the Library of Congress. It's not such an unexpected tourist spot, but just about everything about that building, from the fountain outside to the ceilings to the books, is so visually detailed it just begs to be looked at.

Now that's an entrance hall.

Inscriptions over the lintels read: "In Books lies the soul of the whole past time" and "Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words."