The thing about churches, I’ve noticed, is that they’re always called some vaguely painful and unnecessarily lengthy name, like The Holy Roman Church of the Saints of the Suffering and Horrible Torture and Lots of Blood and Gory Sacrifice. In L’Aquila, however, there’s a level of sheer morbidity I’ve witnessed never before.

First of all, every church doorway is topped by an exposed skull, its sunken eyeballs and hollow cheeks staring evilly down at all who cross the threshold. On top of this, some of them even have rows of little headless statues, supposedly the decapitated remnants of saints. (I can’t even begin to wonder at this.) And inside you will often find a glass display box encasing what is purportedly the remains of Jesus Christ, replete with bodily wounds and oozing blood. Am I the only person in the world who finds this all a little disturbing?

The truth is, I’ve lost track of the number of churches and cathedrals we’ve visited (and the bizarre things that go on in them). Once, in a chapel in the Vittoriana in Rom (a monstrous building that bears more than a passing resemblance to a huge wedding cake) I saw people leaving literally piles upon piles of letters and the feet of a statue of the Holy Infant. Oddly ambitious, I thought, because quite frankly I’m not entirely convinced the infant can read [insert sarcasm here].