A tiny dot of an Alpine town turned snow playground for the conspicuously wealthy, Cortina d’Ampezzo will co-host the 2026 Winter Olympics with Milan, after first hosting the Games in 1956. Ampezzani, as Cortina’s locals are known, have long coexisted with tourists, but the new Olympics represent a different scale: Construction sites blanket the town, nearly a million tickets have been sold, and many in Cortina worry about preserving local life, with its distinctive Ladin language, centuries-old Tyrolean traditions, and the Regole d’Ampezzo — the town’s collective stewardship of pastures and forests, dating to medieval times.
36 Hours in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy: Things to Do and See
