Skiing Cortina d’Ampezzo
We’re not long back from our short skiing holiday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Thankfully still feeling the health after-effects that several days of intense exercise and fresh air bring to a jaded city dweller trapped in the winter grey of London. Sadly the skiing conditions were not ideal as it hadn’t snowed since 28/1 so quite a bit of snow was retreating and the pistes has become quite icy; many of which were only navigable thanks to the nightly operation of snow-cannons. The bright sunlight on the latter days made up for it though.
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Cortina d’Ampezzo is a small ski resort in the Italian Dolomites made famous in part because it hosted the winter Olympics in 1956, ironically at the very same time we were there this year’s winter Olympics were starting in nearby Torino giving us more space on the pistes as many Italians were at home glued to their TV set. Don’t be beguiled by holiday web-sites that claim Cortina d’Ampezzo has a bustling night-life, it has nothing of the sort, most of the visitors are wealthy old and middle-aged Europeans draped in fur and designer bling who spend their time cruising the over-priced boutiques. Bars are few and low-key with most activity centring around the more popular cake and coffee shops. Another exaggeration is its inclusion in the “Dolomiti Superski” chain of resorts and pistes which suggest that you can easily travel from piste to piste. The truth is that very few piste areas interconnect and each resort is small and badly connected by long and winding mountain roads which can take hours to navigate leaving you too nauseated by the rollercoaster ride there to actually ski, and the bus service is terrible. We had a good time but renamed the area the Dolomiti Slackerski.
