This post was originally published on this site.
There is a particular kind of winter that belongs to Cortina d’Ampezzo. It begins with the first light catching the pale limestone peaks of the Dolomites and ends, hours later, with the jagged silhouettes dissolving into the dusk. Between the two, there is skiing, certainly, but there are also centuries of history hidden in the mountains, long lunches at high altitude, snowshoe trails through silent forests and the peculiar pleasure of finding oneself beneath an enormous winter sky. This is Cortina at its most captivating; not simply a ski resort, but an Alpine town with an unusually sophisticated sense of place.