Morning, people of the Giro d'Italia. It's a Tuscan sunrise, 6 o'clock in the morning, in a hotel, the Hotel Castello, in a village not far outside Siena.

I'm going to head out for a run in a minute, which I'm thoroughly looking

forward to because I haven't had the time over the last few mornings, what with all the higher

car chaos, picking up new cars, dropping off old knackard ones, driving here, driving there, doing this,

doing that, it's been hectic. Today's the last day before the first official rest day of the Giro and it is the

Sterato stage, so it's the Straday Bianchi stage, five sectors of famous white Tuscan roads.

That's what awaits the Periton today.

Jakopo and I actually split off from all our colleagues were the only two of our group staying in this particular hotel.

Everybody else has, for some bizarre reason, I can't quite figure out why, managed to blag some apartment in the middle of Siena right next to the Piazza del Campo.

And anyway, not complaining, because last night we,

Jacobo and I, after a driving which we chatted about this,

chatted about that, put the world to rights.

We had dinner together like a romantic old couple.

And just to celebrate the fact that we got through

some of the hardest days in my experience of

grand tours, I said I would like to thank Jakopo and buy a bottle of nice wine to share

over dinner. And I looked at the wine list and we're in Tuscan you now, so there's a lot of

well, do you know what, Tus Tuscan wine funnily enough um

I straight away my eye was drawn to a the four or five wines right at the end of the wine list

are from Brunello de Montalcino and uh straight away uh my mind went back to oh gosh what was it four years ago at the Giro

Italia when we stayed in Montalcino for the Sterato stage and on the advice of the cycling

podcasts Brian Nygaard who knows a thing or two about wine he told me to get a

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