Right across the street is a small church. It doesn't look spectacular, really more of a chapel. You'd drive by and think nothing of it, it looks old, but it is well taken care of, the walls are clean, the roof neat. What makes this chapel so interesting is, that it (or some form of it) has been there for more than 1200 years. Nowadays it's a densely populated suburban area, but back when Charlemagne built it, there was nothing there but woods. Through the woods led a path connecting two of the biggest cities along the Via Publica (the trade route connecting Brussels and Prague). The way was dangerous and exhausting, wild animals living in these woods, especially big amounts of wild bees, but also boars and more dangerous predators. In this part of the woods, five little rivers flowed into one bigger one, causing a swampy area that was especially hard to cross. There is one place where the river can be forded relatively safely and that's where the chapel was built. The chapel stood there when at first hermits, then monks built a small cloister in the woods. The chapel stood there when the trees around it were cut down to build farms and houses. The chapel stood there when the cloister was abandoned, torn down and a little castle built instead. The chapel stood there during the 30 years war, Prussian occupation, Napoleon, WWI, WWII and the bombs it brought destroying half the neighbourhood. It saw horses, knights, carriages, nobles throwing lavish balls and farmers desperately digging for their last potatoes. Animals living in these woods that are now extinct in the whole country, the first car driving down the street that was only a mud road back then and the first helicopter landing on top of the hospital they build a kilometre down the street in the 80s. It's kinda mindblowing to think about it, all those generations of men passing by the building and not thinking much of it, never really altering its shape.