Bamberg Cathedral

Four-towered Romanesque-Gothic cathedral consecrated in 1237

The cathedral that gives the upper town its skyline — four octagonal towers over a powerful Romanesque-Gothic nave, consecrated in 1237 after a fire destroyed the earlier building. Inside is one of the great gatherings of medieval sculpture in Germany: the Bamberg Horseman in the north aisle, the tomb of emperor Henry II and his wife Kunigunde by Tilman Riemenschneider, and a marble papal tomb — Pope Clement II is the only pope buried north of the Alps.

Free to enter; the cathedral square outside, framed by the Alte Hofhaltung and the Neue Residenz, is the most photographed space in the city.

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Inside is the only papal grave north of the Alps — Clement II, the German pope who consecrated Henry III, was buried here in 1047. He had asked, unusually, to be returned to his home cathedral rather than buried in Rome.