I’ve been reading about Cortina d’Ampezzo and daydreaming about taking a long, lazy holiday there..oh bliss! BUT…reality sets in, the phone rings, the usual distractions return and so in a desperate bid to bookmark my brain, I want to get my thoughts down before they disappear!

Bear with me - most of the websites are pretty parochial but if you look around, there’s enough background information to build a decent picture. If you want a break from tourist testimonials and have a taste for the local news, corriere.it covers the local area and is worth a browse. Type ‘Cortina d’Ampezzo’ in the search box.

Cortina d’Ampezzo is a world famous town and municipality in the north-east of Italy, in the Province of Belluno, Veneto (near the Austrian border) and is surrounded on all sides by the southern (Dolomitic) Alps. It is also known as La Regina delle Dolomiti because of its unique location, culture and 1,000 year heritage.
 

The town’s main (although not only…) claim to fame is as one of Italy’s most exclusive and well-known winter resorts. World adulation kicked in after the town hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics. The 1944 Winter Olympics were also scheduled to be held in Cortina, but were canceled because of World War II. The 1927 Nordic, 1941 Nordic and 1941 Alpine World Skiing Championships were held in Cortina as well, although the 1941 Nordic championships were withdrawn by the FIS in 1946. The region lost the bid for the 1988 Winter Olympics to Calgary, Canada.

Mario Ferruccio Belli provides a brilliant history of the area - well worth a browse. But if you want a quick summary only, Wikipedia gives a neat outline, of which one thing jumped out at me straight away:

When Italy entered the World War in 1915, most of the male inhabitants were fighting for Austria on the Russian front. By this time the town was inhabited completely by people of German origin. 669 male inhabitants, most of them under 16 or over 50, tried to fight the Italian troops. Outnumbered by the Italians, they had to retreat. In 1917 the town was freed again by the Tyrolian Standschützen.

After the war the (townspeople) were forced to declare themselves as Italians. In the middle of the town a big monument was build to remember the Italian soldiers who fell here, but all of them came from towns far away from Ampezzo. Until 1998 it was forbidden for the people of Ampezzo to erect a monument for their soldiers, because they had been fighting for Austria.

A couple of quirky things to note if you are planning your next skiing holiday…

• Cortina has 101 ski runs, covering 140 km (87 mi), with the longest run 11 km (7 mi)
• The town has appeared in some classic films:
  1. Ash Wednesday starring Elizabeth Taylor and Henry Fonda
  2. The Pink Panther starring David Niven and Peter Sellers
  3. For Your Eyes Only starring Roger Moore
  4. Von Ryan’s Express starring Frank Sinatra
  5. Cliffhanger starring Sylvester Stallone