Our guide at The Vatican was a lovely man. But he pointed out, too many times really, each time something was painted to look at though there are three dimensional decorations. While we lumbered through The Vatican we were regularly treated to him pointing to something and saying “It’s painted.” We got used to this familiar refrain, and we found ourselves reflexively saying “it’s painted” every time he drew our attention to something.

His consistency made it remarkable when his repetitive statement changed once we entered St Peter’s Basiclica. St Peter’s has had a history with fire and has had several of them over the years. Some wise guy during a rebuild had all the paintings replaced with mosaics. Have you guessed yet? It’s mosaics. It’s all mosaics.

And these two statements have come home with us.