Ribe Cathedral

When you arrive in Ribe, you will see the iconic spires of the Cathedral from far away, towering up over the flat marshes. The Cathedral is located on the square in the middle of the town, in a slight depression, which as many schoolchildren have learned in their history classes, is due to rubbish accumulating over the centuries in the streets around the building. Construction of the present cathedral building began in 1150, but before that, another stone church stood in the same spot. Archaeological excavations in the square have revealed that this was, in all likelihood, the place where the missionary Ansgar founded the first church in Denmark in the middle of the ninth century. In the cathedral square stands a statue of Ansgar by Hein Heinsen. Here, you are actually walking on top of Denmark’s first Christian cemetery – established long before Harald Bluetooth officially "made the Danes Christian". In the Cathedral is a museum about the building’s history.