Major Tourist Attractions In Arhus

One of the most imposing buildings in Århus, the Århus Domkirke is dedicated to St Clement and has the distinction of being the largest and longest church in Denmark. Constructed in an ornate Gothic style, the cathedral’s most prominent feature is its tall tower, all of 312 ft high. The chapel of the church, which is 12th century, is an original Romanesque structure, although the rest of the building - or at least most of it- dates back to the 15th century.  

Especially beautiful is the three-panelled altarpiece in the cathedral; not particularly lovely, but equally interesting, are the rather unusual sketches around the drains on the ceiling.

The oldest church in Denmark and one of the oldest stone churches in all of Scandinavia, the Vor Frue Kirke, the Church of Our Lady, is one of Århus’ major landmarks. Built sometime in the 13th century, the Vor Frue Kirke was, at one time, a Dominican abbey. Perhaps its most interesting feature is the rather eerie crypt below the church. Discovered in 1955, the crypt dates back to 1060 and is in the form of a room with a vaulted ceiling; it contains a replica of an old Roman cross.

 An unusual open-air museum, Den Gamle By, which literally means `Old Town’, rates as one of the major tourist attractions of Århus. 

A representation of a medieval Danish town, the museum is a reconstruction of life in the Middle Ages - with excellently reconstructed old buildings. The museum consists of some 75 buildings, mostly part-timbered houses from the 17th and 18th centuries, although there are other buildings too, including a windmill and a watermill. Vastly interesting, even for anyone who’s not particularly keen on history.

The Moesgård Prehistoric Museum lies south of the city, and is set in a forest that covers some 250 acres. Besides the fact that the Moesgård Museum has an excellent collection of artefacts from the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, it also has an interesting pre-historic exhibit known as `Grauballe Man’. Twenty centuries old, Grauballe Man is one of the `bog people’ found, in a surprisingly well-preserved state, in the peat of a Danish bog. It’s an eerie exhibit, rather macabre, but of lots of interest to anthropologists and the layman as well. Another attraction of the Moesgård Museum is the walking trail that wends its way through a series of reconstructed pre-historic sites.