There´s a town in france, just a few miles south from the wicked metropolis. The town lies on a hill with a well underneath it that is said to produce curative, healing water. Straight on top of it there used to be a site where druids gathered, many thousands of years ago. Another pre-christian cult eventually built a temple there, making it one of europe´s most important pre-christian spiritual centre´s. More than a thousand years ago, the temple was torn down and replaced with a church. The church harbored a piece of the shroud of mother mary (or so they say). When the church was destroyed in a fire, the people of the town managed to save the shroud. They took it as an opportunity to build a huge cathedral on the site, using the shroud as an advertisement to collect money for this huge prestigious project. It was one of the first large cathedrals in europe and therefore it is one of the oldest cathedrals in the world today. Much older than the notre dame in paris for instance(i believe that it was finished in 1220). It became the starting point for the pilgrimage to santiago de compostella, for all people in northern europe. During the many wars that plagued the continent, it fell in english hands so that eventually, henry IV was crowned there. For a while it also functioned as one of the first universities in the world. In the second world war, it was nearly bombed by the americans who thought that the nazi´s used it as a logistic center. A single american soldier volunteered to go behind enemy lines to find out whether this was true and thereby personally managed to safe the cathedral. It eventually survived the heavy fightings that took place to liberate the town from the germans. It is still a place for pilgrimage today.

Being there, you cannot but feel small and humble. Not because of the size of the building, but because all of this history just....becomes almost tangible to the point that it makes your eyes water. You feel dwarfed by history.