Cortina during Olympics: Meeting Alberto Tomba and the chic center of Italy

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy – Sunday night I shook the hand of one of Italy’s greatest playboys. Alberto Tomba still looks like a guy who could ski down a slalom course like the Olympic gold medalist he was.

He also looks like a guy who could still live up to his famous line from the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France: “I used to have a wild night with three women until 5 a.m., but I am getting older. In the Olympic Village here, I will live it up with five women, but only until 3 a.m.”

I’m in the mountain branch of these Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. They’re spread out more than any American Express bus tour. I am covering alpine skiing for Colorado Public Radio (CPR.org) and National Public Radio and the tony town of Cortina d’Ampezzo is in the heart of the Italian Alps.

Cortina is chic. It’s stylish. It’s rich. It’s expensive. It’s famous. Friends in Rome say it’s also snooty. For these two weeks, the world’s sports fans will be watching this little town of 5,500 well-dressed people. 

It’s one of eight Northern Italian towns hosting Olympic events, but no place is more appropriate for Tomba’s presence than Cortina. Tomba looks like Cortina. In fact, his family had a home here. The winner of three Olympic gold medals and two silver in slalom, sat behind a desk signing autographs wearing a black T-shirt of the Napapijri fashion brand that sponsored this event.

Even at 59, he still looks like he could make love to half of Bologna then make spaghetti bolognese. He’s heavily muscled and his hair remains jet black and combed back with a hint of glisten. The mod aviation shades completed a look that screamed Italian seduction. He looks like he jumped off a skiwear poster which is exactly what he was signing.

Cruising Cortina

It was the highlight of my first night of the Olympics when I wasn’t in a hurry to hop a bus for a hotel halfway to Florence. I decided to prowl Cortina. It didn’t take long. Its center is so small, the athletes’ entrance of Sunday’s Opening Ceremonies here went only a couple of blocks.

But the green, white and red lights splashed over the building in the background made it the most scenic of the Opening Ceremonies in four towns.

My first stop was Bar Sport. It’s an Italian sports bar near the Fan Zone in Largo delle Poste. It’s owned by a former goalie of the Italian ice hockey team and filled with hockey and curling paraphernalia. One display case had hockey pucks from around the world and end-of-the-world curling headlines in yellowed pages from the Winnipeg Tribune.

The place was packed with Olympic fans. Curiously, they were nearly all from the U.S. As I ordered, ironically, an American IPA, I met the man assigned to organize public transportation for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Those interested in attending but worried about traffic: He said they’ve ordered 600 electric buses and the mayor will block off lanes reserved for buses going to Olympic venues. I told him not to take transportation notes from these Games. More on that later.

At the bar I met a swarthy Italian realtor from Ampezzo whom I asked about the story I read that locals were tired of all the construction around town.

“They aren’t tired of their rising house value,” he said.

 

The three Bolognesi

Next I walked up the buzzing pedestrian road to Baita Kraina Enoteca, a pricey wine bar where I painfully shelled out €11 for an underpoured but tasty Pinot Nero Delle Dolomiti. Shivering in temperatures in the high 20s, I asked a group if I could share their standing gas heater.

They were three brothers from Bologna who have a family home in Cortina. They’ve spent seemingly half their life here, skiing the slopes, drinking the wine and befriending beautiful women like the two stylish Czech babes hugging the heaters with them.

Luca Cavallari now lives in Doha and is a venture capitalist. He shares my distaste for the city. I asked him what he tells outsiders about Cortina.

“The landscape is unique,” he said. “If you want to talk about people, it’s divided in two. People coming here for many, many years because their families own a place. And this new Olympic Games bring in new people. Maybe we see they open the airport. I hope we don’t become another St. Moritz.

“Except for my real estate.”

Tomba’s party

Luca is well connected in Cortina. He opened his cellphone and showed an invitation to the place to see and be seen Sunday night. Tomba was indeed hosting an event in Franz Kraler, a fashion store filled with clothes carrying Napapijri’s Norwegian flag logo.

The place looked like an after party from a fashion show. Many beautiful women strutted around with fashionable broad-rimmed hats and furs of various authenticity and ethical choice. Men hovered around a big table where young bartenders passed out free Prosecco, wine and beer.

And they all wanted a photo with Alberto who was all too happy to relieve his earlier days as the biggest newsmaker in the Olympics. And that was just his locomotive libido. His medals always took a back seat to his tales of sexual conquest which he later admitted were rather embellished.

But Tomba La Bomba from Bologna remains single. Apparently, he has never met a woman who can fill his biggest requirement: Make spaghetti bolognese like his mother.

Luca urged me to get a photo with him. As a sportswriter off duty, I’ve always avoided celebrities like they’re tax auditors. But before I knew it, he stood up, clasped my forearm like a Roman soldier and smiled like I was the first guy he’d met.

Search for food

Starving, I broke from the group and wound up scurrying for food. Cortina, despite its rich trappings and welcoming nature, has a dearth of restaurants in its center. They’re mostly in overpriced hotels aimed at the filthy rich who fly in on private jets and wear ski outfits more expensive than my monthly rent.

I found one restaurant so expensive and exclusive it didn’t display a name. But I saw a bufala mozzarella fondue starter for €37 and carrot risotto for €27 and kept moving. I wondered if the men inside treating their dates dripping in designer clothes would get a return on their investments.

I wound up at a dive pizza takeaway joint where I got three passable spicy salami pizza slices for €10. I sat outside in sub-freezing weather and chatted with a man in a loud white USA parka. He was the father of Tucker West, a highly ranked American luger who was going to be here for his fourth Olympics but never recovered from an injury in November.

This would be his last competition, his best chance at his first Olympic medal. Last summer, his father rented an outrageously expensive house in Cortina for family and friends. It would be a luge retirement party and, hopefully, a medal celebration. Now he’s just watching the luge competition at Cortina’s track downtown with his son back in the U.S.

During the Olympics, everyone focuses on the athletes. Few think about the parents who live and die with their kids’ dreams and disappointments. The father didn’t look sad. He was in Cortina, soaking up the joyous international atmosphere just as I was.

But I could see “what could’ve been” hung over his head. As he left, I told him to wish his son good luck in the business they would own together. Then I went off to the biggest challenge of the day.

Finding a bus to my hotel.

Hotels and transport

Housing and transportation are major issues here. Reporters have stood in the freezing weather for an hour for  media buses. The hotels in Cortina listed in the media loop were mostly over €400 a night. And those were less than prices listed months ago until the price bubble burst and prices dropped. 

To slip under Colorado Public Radio’s still generous budget, I took a hotel in Auronzo di Cadore, a charming village of 3,000 people. It’s only 20 miles (35 kilometers) east of Cortina but it’s on a narrow road cutting and curving up and down mountains, through forests and past lakes.

It takes about 90 minutes to reach by media bus from Cortina, via a connection, making spontaneity a distant luxury. On Saturday night, the bus from Cortina dropped me halfway to Auronzo in front of an abandoned building. My connecting bus wouldn’t arrive for 30 minutes.

It was 10 p.m., 28 degrees and nothing was near. I laid my backpack on the ground, peed my name in the snow and shivered. A bus came early and stopped. I asked if they were going to where I was going. I showed him the name of my hotel. He said get in.

I exhaled heavily. The warmth inside felt like a lover’s embrace. Then in about 15 minutes I was screaming to get out.

He was going back to Cortina. “CHE CAZZO FAI! (WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!)” I yelled. He told me I had to be on the other side of the street to take the bus going in my hotel’s direction. I asked why he didn’t tell me when I got in.

“You looked cold,” he said.

I got back to the hotel about ah hour later but at least the Hotel Miravalle provides a soft landing. The three-star hotel looks like a Swiss chalet with a wooden A-frame roof. The Dolomites, including the three towering peaks of Tre Cime National Park, and Lake Santa Catarina provide a romantic backdrop.

It was built in the early 1900s and bought by the in-laws of Lucia, the kind English-speaking owner, in 1960. It has the best breakfast buffet I’ve had in Italy, a cozy bar and is an absolute Olympic bargain at €283 a night.

With Colorado’s famed skier Lindsey Vonn breaking her leg Sunday, I’m only covering fellow Colorado darling Mikaela Shiffrin. She’ll keep me here for nine more days. 

I’m just glad I brought a lot of protein bars.

If you’re thinking of going …

How to get here: Fly into Venice. It’s 70 miles (160 kilometers) south of Cortina. Buses take 2 hours, 40 minutes to 3 hours. Prices range from €13-€30 one way.

Where to stay: Albergo Miravalle, Via Alpini 9, Auronzo di Cadore, 39-04-35-400-0068, www.miravalle.net, miravalle@miravalle.net. Three-star hotel 20 miles (35 kilometers) east of Cortina. It’s accessible from Cortina by city buses that leave every 15 minutes and the roundabout route takes 90 minutes.

When to go: Cortina is beautiful in winter and full of snow. It is even more filled with hikers during the summer hitting the Dolomites’ many trails.

For more information: Touristic Info Point, Corsa Italia 81, Campino, 39-04-36-869-086, https://cortina.dolomiti.org/it/inverno, inforpoint@cortinamarketing.it.