The Pearl of the Dolomites and 2026 Winter Olympics host. A genuine mountain town with a side of skiing, where lunch is the main event of the day.
Altitude
1224m
Pistes
120km
Season
Early December – Mid April
Family rating
●●●●○
Overview
Cortina d'Ampezzo is one of the few places we'd recommend skiing even if you didn't ski. It is, first and foremost, a town: a properly handsome Italian alpine town of around 6,000 people, dramatically located beneath the toothy peaks of the Dolomites, with a pedestrianised centre lined with elegant 19th-century buildings, serious independent shops, and a cafe culture that operates entirely on its own clock. The skiing happens around the town, on three separate (and mostly unconnected) ski areas, and it's the skiing that gets caveated rather than the place.
The 2026 Winter Olympics are co-hosted with Milan, and the resort has put substantial money into its lift infrastructure as a result. The new Tofana-Cinque Torri connection finally links two of the three main areas, and the Falzarego cable car has been upgraded. By the time you're reading this, the network should feel more cohesive than the slightly fragmented set-up Cortina was previously known for.
What Cortina offers a family is something quite different from the French and Austrian options. The skiing is gentler (slope-angle-wise, you'd struggle to find genuinely steep terrain on-piste; this is broadly a good thing for mixed-ability groups), the sun exposure is generous (south and west-facing for most of the lift system, so warmer mornings are common), and the food culture is in another league entirely. A long lunch on a sunny terrace at Rifugio Averau or Rifugio Scoiattoli, looking at the Cinque Torri pinnacles, is the kind of experience that converts non-skiers into skiing enthusiasts.
What you give up is the scale of linked terrain you'd get in the French Alps. The three areas (Tofana, Faloria-Cristallo and Cinque Torri-Lagazuoi) require some bus or transfer use even with the new lift connections, and 120km of pistes feels modest by Three Valleys standards. The resort therefore suits families who plan to ski 3-4 hours a day and treat the rest of the day as part of the holiday.
Best for
The ski area
Tofana, accessed by the Freccia nel Cielo cable car directly from town, is the largest single area: long blue and red runs from Ra Valles back down towards Cortina, with the famous Olympia delle Tofane downhill course running through it (you can ski the women's World Cup downhill if you've got the legs). Faloria-Cristallo, on the eastern side, is the quietest and probably has the best on-mountain restaurants. Cinque Torri-Lagazuoi is the most scenic by some distance: skiing here, with the pinnacle peaks of the Cinque Torri to one side and the Dolomite walls to the other, is visually unlike anywhere else in Europe.
From the top of the Lagazuoi cable car, you can ski the Hidden Valley (Armentarola), a long, gently descending blue run that drops you into the Alta Badia ski area and ends with a horse-drawn taxi ride back to a chairlift. It's an absolute classic and a must-do day for any first-timer in Cortina. Plan for a full day, including lunch at Rifugio Scotoni roughly halfway down.
The Socrepes area, accessed from the lower Tofana cable car, has the most beginner-friendly terrain: gentle blues, a magic carpet, and a cluster of mountain restaurants with proper kids' menus. The Italian ski schools are excellent (Scuola Sci Cortina is the long-established option), with English instruction available on request. Children's lessons typically start at 9.30am, which gives you a more civilised start to the day than the 8.30am scrambles we associate with French resorts.
Dining highlights
Rifugio Averau at the top of the Cinque Torri lift is one of the great mountain lunches in the Alps. Properly cooked Italian alpine food (tagliatelle al ragu, casunziei dumplings, slow-cooked beef), a sunny south-facing terrace, and the Cinque Torri pinnacles right in front of you. Rifugio Scoiattoli, slightly lower down, is the slightly easier-to-book sister option. On the Faloria side, Rifugio Faloria itself is excellent and worth the trip.
Cortina's town-centre dining is some of the best of any ski resort. SanBrite, just outside town, holds a Michelin star and works with produce from the family farm. Tivoli, on the road up to Pocol, is the long-standing fine-dining favourite. For a more relaxed family dinner, El Camineto in central Cortina does proper Italian classics in a warm room and is consistently good. La Tavernetta in the centre is reliable and child-friendly.
The cafe culture in Cortina is an attraction in itself. Pasticceria Lovat for breakfast pastries (the apple strudel is the signature). Cafe Royal on Corso Italia for the proper espresso break. Pasticceria Embassy for an afternoon hot chocolate that takes the whole afternoon to drink, ideally.
After the lifts close
Cortina's apres is the Italian version: less rowdy than Austria, more sociable than Switzerland, and centred on aperitivo. The classic post-ski stop is LP26 in the centre of town for proper cocktails and small plates. The bar at Hotel de la Poste has been the meeting point for the smart Italian crowd since the 1950s and is worth at least one visit for the atmosphere alone.
Beyond drinking, the town's pedestrianised centre is genuinely lovely for an evening passeggiata: lit shops, an active main square, and proper Italian shopping (the Bottega Veneta and other big-name boutiques are all here, but the smaller independent shops are arguably more interesting). For families, the ice rink at the Stadio Olimpico (built for the 1956 Olympics, in continuous use ever since) is open most evenings and is a brilliant pre-dinner activity.
Getting there
Venice (Marco Polo) is the obvious airport: around 2h transfer to Cortina, and the drive itself is dramatic, climbing up through the foothills of the Dolomites. Treviso is a slightly closer alternative (1h 45m). Innsbruck is also viable from northern Europe, with a 2h 30m transfer over the Brenner pass.
Self-driving from anywhere in northern Italy is straightforward and worth considering: Milan is a 4h 30m drive, Munich about 5h. The road up to Cortina from the Venetian plain is well-maintained and chains are rarely required. Parking in town is limited but most hotels and rental properties have private parking arrangements.
There's no direct train connection (Cortina lost its branch line decades ago), but the regional service to Calalzo combined with a 45-minute bus is a reasonable rail option from Venice. A direct rail connection is supposedly being built for the 2026 Olympics; we'll update this section once it opens.
In pictures
Common questions
Yes, Cortina is an excellent family choice and particularly strong for beginners. The beginner skiing is among Europe's best, with many accessible learn-to-ski zones, the Socrepes area chief among them, offering wide, gentle terrain set higher on the mountain for good snow. The resort sits in a sunny amphitheatre ringed by the Dolomite peaks, the atmosphere is relaxed and sociable rather than hard-charging, and children ski at discounted rates, which helps a family budget. It's a resort that rewards families who want a beautiful, unhurried week as much as a sporting one.
Cortina itself has around 120km of marked runs across sectors including Tofane, Faloria-Cristallo and Lagazuoi-5 Torri. The real headline, though, is the lift pass: Cortina is part of the Dolomiti Superski, the largest ski area in the world, with around 1,200km of slopes across twelve linked resorts. For families that means a lifetime of variety on a single pass, though it's worth knowing that the wider Dolomiti Superski resorts are reached by road or the famous Sella Ronda circuit rather than all being lift-linked from Cortina's own slopes.
The Dolomites enjoy a reputation for sunshine, and Cortina's sunny aspect makes it especially pleasant for younger children. For families, January and the non-peak weeks of March give the best balance of good snow, quieter slopes and gentler prices, with February the busiest period. Snow reliability has historically been variable here, but the resort, like the rest of the Dolomites, has invested heavily in snowmaking, so even the steeper runs hold up well in the early season, and the area tends to catch snow from storm directions that miss resorts further west.
The most convenient airports are the two Venice options. Venice Marco Polo and Treviso are both within around a two-hour transfer of the resort, with Treviso the closest at roughly 110 minutes by road. Innsbruck in Austria is also a viable gateway, a similar distance to the north, and Verona and Munich are alternatives a little further out. With children, a private transfer from Venice is the smoothest arrival; the drive up into the Dolomites is genuinely beautiful, which helps with restless passengers.
Exceptionally so. Cortina is an elegant, lively town in its own right, with smart shopping, good restaurants and a strong tradition of visitors who come for the setting as much as the skiing. Non-skiers can enjoy winter walking, the spectacular scenery, long lunches on sunny terraces and the town's sophisticated atmosphere, while the gentle, scenic pistes suit cautious skiers and children. It's a resort where a family of mixed enthusiasm, not just mixed ability, can all have a good week.
Cortina sits at the more fashionable, sophisticated end of Italian skiing and is not the cheapest Dolomites option, but it still offers good value next to comparable Swiss or top-tier French resorts, particularly on dining, where Italian mountain restaurants deliver quality at sensible prices. Discounted children's lift rates help family budgets, and the breadth of the Dolomiti Superski pass means you're paying for access to far more skiing than Cortina alone. As ever, we're happy to advise on where in Cortina the spend genuinely pays off for a family.
From the journal
guides
Cortina has the most beautiful mountain setting in the Alps and some of the most enjoyable skiing on the continent. It is also, if we're being honest, not the resort for every kind of skier. Here's what the mountain actually delivers.
29 June 2026 · 6 min read
guides
Potentially not everyone in your family wants to ski. Cortina is one of the few alpine resorts that is genuinely worth visiting whether or not you're a skier. Here we explain why a non-skier can have a brilliant week in Cortina and everything it has to offer non-skiers.
4 December 2025 · 6 min read
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