Oh, my! I could get lost in here, readers. Check it out!
This Beautiful Church Library is Famed for Secret Doors, Creepy Crypt—Devoted to Martyred Roman
By Michael Wing
5/2/2024
There is a very old, extravagant, beautiful church along the Danube River in Northern Austria that could easily be imagined into some future Indiana Jones film—it has just the right mix of creepiness and secrecy.
With its hidden doors and secret staircases, crypt full of skulls, and thousands of tomes yellowed with age, an alluring monastery near the town of Sankt Florian, 10 miles from Linz, may conjure that fedora-wearing archeologist, whip in hand. It even had his nemeses, the Germans, occupying during the war years.
Surpassing the blockbuster movie, though, St. Florian Monastery gives the effect of transcendent beauty drawn from the Baroque style. Art and architecture elevate the mind.
The austere monks who prayed here in Carolingian times in the 9th century lived with less than the monastics who worshipped later, amid lavish halls of colored marble and ornate bookshelves. The monastery’s grand refurbishment in the 17th-century introduced the Baroque style.
St. Florian is among the largest monasteries in Austria, rivaling the towering heights of Melk Abbey and opulent decoration of Klosterneuburg Monastery. But unlike these two, St. Florian host smaller crowds.
A Song of Joy by Caroline Furlong 