St. Peter’s Cathedral Bremen

Bremen's St. Peter's Cathedral is an impressive building on Bremen's market square. A church has stood on this site for over 1200 years. The first wooden cathedral was built in 789 by the Saxon bishop Willehad and replaced by a stone building around 805. After being destroyed and rebuilt several times, the three-nave basilica was built in the 11th century, which provided the basic structure of today's Bremen Cathedral.

Today, St. Peter's Cathedral is an impressive church. The southern of the two over 90-metre-high church towers can be climbed and offers an incredible view over Bremen. Guided tours of the cathedral take place every Wednesday and on the first Sunday of the month.

Originally built in the Romanesque style, the cathedral was rebuilt around 1500 into a late Gothic church with filigree net vaulting. After the Thirty Years' War, the cathedral was closed for almost 70 years and gradually fell into disrepair. The first major restoration took place from 1888 to 1901. During the Second World War, the cathedral fell victim to several bomb attacks and had to be extensively restored again from 1972 to 1985.

The cathedral also houses a museum that provides insight into the 1200-year history of the cathedral, documents its construction, displays sacred works of art and showcases the spectacular excavation finds from seven bishop's tombs. Admission is free. And the cathedral has another, slightly eerie highlight to offer - the "Lead Cellar". On display are the mummies of eight people in their open coffins, who were originally buried in the cathedral's east crypt. To this day, the reason for the mummification of the corpses has not been conclusively explained. Particularly curious: scientists found a bullet in the spine of a male mummy.