DNA tests reveal Our Mad Dog and Englishman genes

 Today the temperature was 28 degrees and what were we doing at the 3:30 in the afternoon at the hottest point of the day?  Standing in a long line, cement and stone surface reflecting the heat, no shade in site -  waiting to get into St Peter's!  Always suspected there was some mad dog in us!! 

Only two pictures today.

I am not sure which Saint this is, but what I was more interested in was the background. 

This looks like it is a cloth banner or tapestry................

.........but in reality, when you see it up close, it is made up of small pieces of rock - a mosaic- the purple/wine colored rock is porphyry, a relatively rare and extremely hard stone, chosen specifically by royalty because of it's color -  Purple was the color of royalty.  All of the porphyry came from a single quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.  Knowledge of it's location was lost from about the 5th century until the early 1800's when the quarry was once again found.