St. Peter's Church is first mentioned in a monasterial letter from 1135. Built of red brick, it is one of Denmark's largest and finest Gothic buildings, scarcely altered since 1375. The chancel, with its five tall windows, is particularly impressive. The current Gothic church replaces an older Romanesque cross-shaped building built of limestone and brick from the second half of the 12th century. This in turn was built on the site of an even older stone church with two western towers.
The church's most famous mural painting is on the north wall of the chancel. It depicts Valdemar IV and Queen Helvig. There are other wall paintings in the church which have not been uncovered since they were coated with limewash after the Reformation.
The most imposing feature of the church is the pulpit, designed by Lorentz Jørgensen of Holbæk in 1671. Two rows of choir stalls and a bronze font date back to about 1500. The altarpiece is headed by a late-Gothic arched crucifix from 1844. The church also contains a number of gravestones and epitaphs dedicated to the families of Næstved.
References:The city walls of Avila were built in the 11th century to protect the citizens from the Moors. They have been well maintained throughout the centuries and are now a major tourist attraction as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors can walk around about half of the length of the walls.
The layout of the city is an even quadrilateral with a perimeter of 2,516 m. Its walls, which consist in part of stones already used in earlier constructions, have an average thickness of 3 m. Access to the city is afforded by nine gates of different periods; twin 20 m high towers, linked by a semi-circular arch, flank the oldest ones, Puerta de San Vicente and Puerta del Alcázar.