August 29: Board flight in Newark. Select "Gone with the Wind" from On Demand movies on the plane. Take sleeping pill around the time Bonny dies. Wake up with one more hour to go in our flight to Rome. Arrive in Rome. Immigration man stamps my passport over another exit stamp from the Cayman Islands (aside: I went to Italy in 2001. This was maybe my second time to leave the country and I desperately desired passport stamps as evidence of my journeys. Man in Rome did not stamp my book at all...... Fast forward to 2008. Man stamps it over another darker stamp. Glad I took pictures... my passport doesn't really indicate that I've ever entered Italy.)
We didn't check any luggage (God bless summer and sundresses). We pick up our standard rental "FIAT" and our "NeverLost" box. We'll come to curse the NeverLost lady to the point that on the last day of our trip the Boy suggests that if I want to destroy her, he'll pay Hertz for it. Sadly we couldn't find a sporting goods store to buy a baseball bat. I had definite dreams of an Office Space fax machine montage...... After some misdirection and a small dirt road.... we eventually arrive at our hotel in Montalcino. Hotel Vecchia Oliviera is a charming hotel right on the edge of town (the town is REALLY small). The views from our room are GLORIOUS. It's like a postcard. We walk from the edge of town to the center of town in about two and a half minutes and drink our first glass of wine (a 99 Biondi Santi for him, an 05 Guidalberto for me) and have some pasta and sandwiches. Gelato #1 follows.
We walk around Montalcino and see the Fortezza there (pictured above). You can go all the way to the top so we climb some stairs and look at the beautiful views for awhile. The Boy points out that the "holes" in the walls were for pouring hot lead, etc. on one's enemies as they tried to storm the gates. 
Unexpectedly downstairs in one of the great rooms of the fort, they have an art display which contains different artist's depictions of all the various mascots of the contrada in Siena which raced in the recent Palio. This is the Unicorn, which holds a special place in my heart.
We buy a bottle of wine (the only one I forget) and head back to the hotel to drink it. Afterwards, at 7pm (we've been up for awhile) it's bedtime. Unfortunately, jet lag sets in and we wake up at 11:30 pm, WIDE awake and ready to begin our day.* We take another sleeping pill..... four hours of sleep is definitely NOT enough. And, this isn't New York City.... you can't start your day at 11:30pm.... this city definitely sleeps.
Here are a couple of pictures of the view from our hotel room.
This brings us to day #2.........
* Fortuitously, at 11:30 I had received an email from the best friend Ga that her boy had popped the question (which I knew was going to happen). Clearly I was meant to know this news and this is why I woke up.
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