St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, in snow. I had known St. Paul’s quite miraculously (er, so to speak) had survived the Blitz, and that a bomb had in fact hit the place but (again quite miraculously) not gone off. I had *not* known that firefighters and volunteers had spent every night of the Blitz on the cathedral’s roof, throwing away incindiary chunks and putting out incidental fires, in order to protect it.
Across the street from the cathedral is a monument to the firefighters who risked their lives every day and night to keep it safe.