Cortina d’Ampezzo: the back story

About Cortina d’Ampezzo: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Ski Resorts Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Cortina has been drawing visitors for more than 170 years. Mountaineers came first, then the hotels, then the Winter Olympics of 1956, and in February 2026 the Olympic women’s alpine races on the Tofane.

Mountaineers and hoteliers

In 1850, the tourist office records, the first mountaineers arrived from Austria, Belgium and England to climb the most inaccessible peaks, and Paul Grohmann’s Wanderungen in den Dolomiten of 1877 made the valley famous among explorers and geologists. By 1900 visitors had 25 hotels and 10 villas to choose from. The valley has its own Ladin dialect, and the Regole, an order dating back to about 1200, still brings together the descendants of the original Ampezzo families to manage the land under their ancient laws.

The Olympic town

Cortina hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956, the first broadcast live on television in Italy, and the town became a byword for the Dolce Vita. Seventy years later, at Milano Cortina 2026 (6–22 February), the women’s alpine skiing was held on the Tofane, with curling, bobsleigh, skeleton and luge in town, and the Paralympic Games followed from 6 to 15 March 2026.

Cortina, the tourist office explains, means a “closed” or “fenced” place; Ampezzo comes from the Latin amplus, wide.

The skiing

Cortina’s own pass covers 120 km of slopes across Cortina, San Vito di Cadore and Auronzo-Misurina, including the Lagazuoi run down to Armentarola, with 66 slopes and 26 lifts in the Cortina area itself. Dolomiti Superski adds the 12 valleys of the Dolomites, 1,200 km in all. Scuola Sci Cortina, founded in 1933, was Italy’s first ski school.

Every budget

Cortina is famous for glamour, but the tourist office lists B&Bs, three-star hotels and campsites as well as the five-star resorts, and the rifugi serve traditional Ampezzo cooking. Buses link the town with Venice Airport every day.

Our advice: ride up to the Lagazuoi on a clear morning for the view, ski down to Armentarola, and save one evening for dinner at a hut reached by chairlift or cable car.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Cortina d’Ampezzo: the back story before you go.