As I was climbing the scaffolding that now riddles St. Stephen’s on the upper square, I could not even imagine how it would feel to be so close to the ceiling of the biggest church in Motovun, whose restoration had started a couple of years ago. The young conservators working on the painting in the central medallion above the main nave invited me to see what they were doing. When I stood up on the platform where two of them were working at the time, I turned out to be only a smidgen taller than the ceiling. Looking around as the crown of my head rubbed against the painted surface, I was immediately taken by the waves in the ceiling around me. Some were quite prominent. Invisible from below, these telltale signs of poor upkeep are the very reason why conservation is now needed, of course. As I was climbing down the scaffolding half-an-hour later, I was wondering whether I would ever have another chance to see those amazing waves again. As though I could ever forget them in the first place.