La Dolce Vita in the snow

National Review, March 30, 1992 by Linda Bridges

THERE'S hardly such a thing as an ugly mountain, but some are more beautiful than others, and high among the "some" is the ring of peaks surrounding the ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo, a hundred miles north of Venice. These mountains are not only beautiful but witty. Like the rocks of our Bryce Canyon, they are dolomitic limestone-pink and orange, not grey, and with the softer bits easily eroded, leaving fantastic towers and crenelations. The north end of town is bounded by the slabs of the Cristallo group, looking like an improbably dramatic painted backdrop. Turn your back on the Cristallo and you're facing the fanciful spires of Croda da Lago and Becco di Mezzodi, perched on top of a snow-covered plateau. On your left is the handsome but more conventional Sorapis, but around to the right are the Tofana mountains, three massive peaks that look translucent in the late afternoon sun. No wonder the Cortinesi seem contented with their lot.

But even in near-paradise there are disappointments and disagreements. While the Italian jetset is enough in evidence to warrant an article on Cortina in Town and Country from time to time, the international jetset hasn't accorded it the same notice as Gstaad or St. Moritz or Courchevel. The local authorities reportedly hope that a repeat visit of the winter Olympics (held in Cortina in 1956) would put the town on more people's mental map: but so far they have failed to get the nod. And even granted the success of Albertville, I may not be the only one who wonders if an invasion of the hordes needed for a modern made-for-television Olympics wouldn't damage the texture of this lovely place.

Certainly there are Cortinesi who think unrestricted development would do so. A comparison between Cortina and the mess that has been made of Chamonix is Exhibit Number 1 in the case for restraint. A few years ago a remarkable little document turned up at the front desks of Cortina hotels. Most of it was the standard tourist information-maps, advertisements for shops and restaurants-but one fold contained an essay on the long tradition of common holding of grazing and forest lands. Counterarguments could be made, but it was a compelling answer to outsiders who had been complaining about the difficulty of getting permission to build there.

But this needn't trouble anyone coming for a week's vacation. The skiers, of course, will head straight for the slopes-but so will a high proportion of non-skiers. Many of Cortina's mountain restaurants (rifugii) are accessible to non-skiers, either from the road or via cablecars and chairlifts. Favorites include Duca d'Aosta, under the Pomedes rocks; Scoiattoli, up at Cinque Torri; and Rio Gere, below the formidable Staunies run-but there are a dozen others scattered among the different ski areas. Most of them have outdoor tables and lounge chairs, and in fine weather these are occupied by ladies (and a few older men) who are content to regard skiing as a spectator sport. One gets used to seeing people sunbathing in fur coats.

A favorite venue for the sunbathing mammas is El Camineto (The Fireplace). On a sunny day they drive up early and stake out tables for their families, who will join them for lunch. (Skiers not accompanied by a mamma can drop by or phone to reserve.) The food is served formally by white-jacketed waiters, who also look out for their customers in other ways. If the sun is really hot (and at 5,000 feet the temperature can go quite high without ruining the snow), El Camineto is prepared: it has enough straw hats to go around. On the other hand, if it's snowing hard, the numbers both of mammas and of skiers drop sharply, and the restaurant can afford to detail an underwaiter to look after the lunchers' clothing. He takes your sodden hat, gloves, and jacket and drapes them over the firescreen, turning them to make sure they dry evenly.

But let's hope it's sunny and not too hot, because there are few pleasures at once so sybaritic and so innocent as sitting in the sun, surrounded by snow, watching the follies and triumphs of skiers across the way, and eating risotto with chicken livers or ravioli alla carbonara, followed if you like (second courses are not obligatory) by a smoked pork chop or-a local specialty-grilled sausages with polenta.

But the snow beckons, and so it's back across the street for a warm-up run at Rumerlo, and then up to Labirinti or Canaloni or Olimpionica. Olimpionica was the trail used for the men's downhill race in the 1956 Olympics, but it satisfies all sorts and conditions, from the Class 3 skier who makes his way down it in an hour or so by stem turn and sideslip (to be sure, skipping the top, steep part where the trail goes between a daunting pair of rocks), to the good skier who does it in six to ten minutes, to the downhill racer who does it in something under two minutes.

The most prominent downhiller in local eyes is Kristian Ghedina, who grew up a stone's throw away from Olimpionica and won two World Cup races on it in the 1989-90 season. He was not in top form at Albertville, having had a bad car accident last summer, but gold medalist Alberto Tomba, though not a native son, also learned to ski on these slopes. Might he have been, a dozen years ago, one of the little show-offs you would see clowning around, riding the poma lift backward, and then taking off at high speed after their maestro, practicing their racing tucks? (Less likely that he was one of the two boys-probably members of the church choir-discussing, twenty feet apart on the poma lift, whether Guido d'Arezzo was more important as a monk or a musician.)