Roskilde Cathedral

Roskilde Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a cathedral of the national religion of Denmark, Lutheranism. It's been around for a while- it was built during the 12th and 13th centuries, and is the first Gothic cathedral to have been constructed from brick.

It was not the original church to be built on the site though- that honor goes to the Trinity Church, built by Harald Bluetooth in the late 900s. For future reference, if you ever find yourself competing at a trivia night in Copenhagen, good old Harald Bluetooth was the first Danish monarch to be buried in the Roskilde Cathedral, as his body is still down there beneath the 'new' church.

Le façade.

The main aisle.

There are five chapels within the cathedral, all housing the remains of Danish monarchs. Comparing the coffins and sepulchral monuments throughout history is extremely interesting, as is seeing the way the design and decoration of all the chapels varies.

The monument to Christian I.

A detail of the panel on the lower left.

One of the many coffins in Frederick V's Chapel. According to our guide, all the metalwork on the coffins in this chapel is actually gold.

Christian IV's Chapel.

And the ceiling in there. This is one of my top five favorite ceilings of all time.

The ceiling in St. Brigitte's Chapel. This is where the current Danish queen, Queen Margrethe II has chosen to be buried, when the time comes.

No church would be complete without a nice picture of the Devil looking down on you. Apparently people used to find depictions of the Devil like this one so terrifying that all the paintings in this chapel were actually painted over and have only recently been restored.

A model of Margrethe's future burial monument. Don't be alarmed- she won't be encased in clear crystal- her coffin will be underneath this,, to be joined by that of her son and successor, Frederick. after his death.