Welcome to my balcony. Welcome to the sound of dogs in the distance, barking in the morning.

Welcome to the sound of buses and lorries grinding up the road just behind my hotel.

Welcome to the noise of birdsong in the thick woods that surround this balcony where I'm

standing, looking out over the Garda pre-alps, this valley that leads up to Trento and above

us the colossal mountain of Montibondone where the race is going to finish today. It's sunny,

I'm rested, sort of, and let's go again one more week of the Giro d'Italia and an outcome

and the race that is far from certain and a voice that is a little bit croaky.

So, um, yes, stage 16, we're on our way to work via the wrong way. We, uh, we, we, we,

I mean, that we drove to the top of the climb, only to find out that the, um, the TV compound is

kind of at the bottom of the climb. So we've left a cafe where we were sitting and drinking a,

our second cappuccino the day and enjoying the sunshine at the top of the climb and now we're

rattling down the climb again. Um, so it's one of those days where it's all a bit confusing.

Also, we're in the sort of funk of confusion that is stage 16 and, uh, Matt's developed a, uh,

bit of a cough overnight, which is interesting. He's spent a lot of yesterday sneezing, actually,

often in groups of three. It was, um, as it often happens with sneezing, you go,

sneeze, sorry, and then you apologise to everyone in the car, sneeze, apologise again, and then

sneeze just as a little, so a trick-titch of sneezing repeatedly throughout what was really

quite a long transfer yesterday. I mean, I mean, for one it's worth it. Broke the journey up a

little bit because, you know, you, you know, you said, we were in nice bless you each time. Um,

I apologise and it bless you. But yeah, um, horrible journey yesterday, wasn't it? No, it was awful,

wasn't it? Um, there was two crashes on, on the various big motories around pressure.

I think we had two hours and fifteen, um, uh, 88 normalamentate. That is the, that means normal,

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