Day 12 -The Glamour Of Cortina d’Ampezzo

Jan 25, 2024

Today’s Adventure

For our Day 12 adventure Cindy and I traveled about an hour south from San Candido to visit Cortina d’Ampezzo, a charming high-end ski town located in the neighboring province of Belluno. Cortina will be a host city (along with Milan) for the upcoming 2026 Olympic Winter Games – a role that the town also played back in 1956.

We started our day around 9:00 with a quick train ride to Dobbiaco where we caught a bus for the 45 minute ride down Strada Statale 51 to Cortina. As Cindy said on the return ride this afternoon, this has to be the most beautiful free bus ride in the world. I couldn’t agree more – the scenery in this section of the Dolomites is simply amazing. The highlight of the ride is always the sneak peak at the Drei Zinnen, even if the weather’s bad or if it’s through a smudged bus window.

We arrived at the main bus station in Cortina at 10:00 and headed off to find our trail for the day. We followed a paved bike path for a few blocks from the bus station before turning right and starting our steep climb up into the mountains. You have to pay for lunch somehow, right?

As it turns out our trail, which was a non-stop uphill grind for more than 1,500 feet, took us up one of the main slopes for a now defunct ski resort. As if there was any doubt we even passed an abandoned and boarded-up lift house at the mid-point of the hike. The resort closed about ten years ago, but a number of old snow-making turbines and lift chairs are still there in big piles. It was quite strange to see this abandoned facility so close to one of the world’s leading ski towns!

We finally made it to the top of our reverse ski run with our arrival at the Rifugio Mietres (https://mietres.it/). This hütte is family-run, like so many of them, and enjoys a commanding position looking down into Cortina. The sun terrace also has views of the Cinque Torre rock formation, any number of named peaks, and the downhill ski race course that will be used for a World Cup championship this weekend.

After perusing the menu Cindy decided on their tagliatelle pasta with venison sauce. Stuart chose the spinach spätzle with speck and a parmesan cream sauce. And in keeping with the fine tradition of “Two Beers with a View” we both ordered Benediktiner Hell pale lager drafts and took the required photograph.

Following lunch we put our ice cleats back on for a fairly rapid descent into Cortina. It was much easier going downhill than uphill, but some sections required careful footwork due to varying snow depths and/or an extra steep section of the slope. The ice cleats earned their keep yet again.

When we got back to town we had 45 minutes to burn before the next bus back to Dobbiaco so we strolled the main pedestrian mall. It’s amazing to see just how many big name fashion designers have storefronts in tiny little Cortina. If anyone’s interested, they even had a Fendi Kids shop!

By the time we got back to San Candido we had logged 5.6 miles with 1,732 feet of vertical in just over three hours. Not our best time ever, but then again that was some tough vertical with soft and unpredictable snow under foot.

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.