Roskilde Cathedral

Roskilde Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the burial church of Danish monarchs since the fifteenth century. The building itself is one of the earliest examples of Gothic brick architecture in northern Europe, begun in the 1170s — a notable achievement given that Denmark had to import the concept of building in brick from northern Germany.

The interior is a gallery of royal funerary art. Over forty kings and queens are buried here, each chapel a different statement from a different era: Renaissance marble, Baroque bronze, neoclassical restraint, and the occasional Victorian excess. The twin spires visible from the train are nineteenth-century additions — Romanesque tops replaced by neo-Gothic points during a restoration campaign. Free guided tours run in summer; the cathedral is open daily and worth more than a quick pass-through.

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The cathedral contains the tombs of more than forty Danish monarchs — more than any other church in Europe. Each ruler has an increasingly elaborate chapel or sarcophagus, creating an accidental museum of Danish royal taste across six centuries. The most recent addition is the chapel of Frederik IX, completed in 1985, whose exterior mosaic by Steen Lykke Nielsen makes it look like a modernist afterthought tacked onto a medieval building — which is exactly what it is.