Above the rolling hills of China’s Guangxi Province, near the peaceful village of Mianhua, is a secret heaven for those brave enough to climb high. Mianhua Library, one of the world’s weirdest places to read, isn’t hidden in a downtown corner or on top of a tower. It’s built into the side of a steep cliff, inside a massive cave with bookshelves attached to the rock walls and wooden walkways.
You can get to Mianhua Library by walking through a green forest. The slope steepens as you reach a succession of small wooden walkways fastened to the cliffside. These shaky platforms beneath your feet provide breathtaking views of the valley below, a mosaic of meadows and rivers that shimmer in the sunlight. To get to the library door you must navigate these dangling walkways, occasionally gripping the railings as the wind blows past.
The huge space, carved out by wind and water over thousands of years, is both wide and deep, with thousands of books on the irregular walls. Shelves wrap around the rock’s natural features, creating a textual maze that feels both old and new. Sunlight comes in through the cave mouth, illuminating the spines of novels, histories and poetry collections. Wooden balconies in the cave provide reading nooks where you can curl up with a book and look out at the foggy cliffs beyond.
Because of their cliffside setting the pathways and balconies need to be maintained to keep them safe from the weather and time. The books need to be protected from the wet air in the cave and kept at a controlled temperature. But these obstacles are part of the library’s charm, proof that beauty and function can exist in the most unexpected places.
If you want to see more amazing bookstores check out China’s Dujiangyan Zhongshuge, a mirrored maze of shelves in Sichuan, or Austria’s Admont Abbey, which has the world’s largest monastic library and golden corridors filled with old books.
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