The first church on this site dates back to 4th century, The 6th century it was  enlarged and elevated to cathedral status.  The cathedral was struck and portions of it destroyed  by lighting no less than 5 times It was burned and bombed and damaged by hurricanes.  One of the fires was so intense it melted the bronze bells on one of the towers which simply melted into the cathedral floor.  In the 9th century the Vikings levelled all of  the buildings of the cathedral.   The cathedral was named the tallest building (the lantern tower with the cast iron spire of the 19th century) in the world at 151m from 1876 to 1880.  The most famous paintings of the cathedral were done by the Impressionist artist Claude Monet, who produced a series of paintings of the building showing the same scene at different times of the day and in different weather conditions.

The cathedral is huge, and simply spectacular and impressive in every way.