Ribe Cathedral

Ribe Cathedral — formally the Church of Our Lady — is the oldest cathedral in Denmark and the country's only five-aisled church. The current building was begun around 1150 in southern Romanesque style, on the site of a wooden church founded around 860 by the Benedictine missionary Ansgar; the western towers, the apsidal east end and the lantern at the crossing all date from the medieval campaign.

The interior is bright and remarkably airy for a building this old. The most striking modern feature is the cycle of stained-glass windows, mosaics and frescoes in the apse and choir by the Cobra-movement artist Carl-Henning Pedersen, completed in 1987 after years of local controversy. Climb the Borgertårnet (Commoner's Tower) — 52 metres and 248 steps — for a panoramic view across the marshes to the Wadden Sea, 30 km off.

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A story
When the Romanesque cathedral was rebuilt in the twelfth century, the masons used yellow tufa shipped up the Rhine from a quarry near modern Andernach — the only material soft enough to carve but durable enough to survive the Jutland weather. The ships came in to a wooden harbour quay only a few hundred metres from where the cathedral stands.

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