I love to scamper, at low tide, shoes in my hands, far from shore, across the mudflat in the vast Bay of Mont St-Michel. Splashing across black sand and through little puddles, I head for a dramatic abbey reaching to heaven from a rock surrounded by a vast and muddy solitude. Since the sixth century,…

An elaborate two-story rococo hall inside an 11th-century abbey is so ornate that it is considered one of the world’s most beautiful libraries. Wiblingen Abbey is a grand monastery located south of the city of Ulm in the south German state of Baden-Württemberg. It was founded in 1093 for the Benedictine monks. It became widely…

A photographer who found himself suited and booted with nowhere to go after attending a wedding took a magical detour to the world’s largest abbey library, in Austria. He walked away with a priceless series of photos and film, claiming, “It’s literally like stepping into a fairytale.” Originally from Tel Aviv, photographer and restaurateur Nuriel…