Sports events are a great opportunity to discover places you may have never seen before, or see the ones you already know from a different angle. The Giro d’Italia, one of the most important cycling races in the world, is a notable example. The 2026 Winter Olympics, hosted across several locations in northern Italy, showcased not only some of our most beautiful mountain resorts, but also one of the most impressive and best preserved Roman monuments in Italy. Which is not in Rome.
This year, the Olympics were back to Italy… but where exactly? Discover the venues of Milano-Cortina 2026 and look back on the Italian Winter Olympics.
The first polycentric Olympics
A febbraio, occhi puntati sull’Italia: this February, all eyes were on Italy! The 2026 Winter Olympics were held from 6 to 22 February in three regions of northern Italy: Lombardia, Veneto, and Trentino Alto-Adige. Fourteen different venues hosted i primi giochi olimpici diffusi, the first Olympic Games to adopt a polycentric approach, spreading events across multiple locations over 22,000 square kilometers.
The venues of Milano-Cortina 2026
The key venues of this edition of the Winter Olympics were Milano and Cortina, of course. Milan, the capital of Lombardy, was by far the biggest city among this year’s Olympic venues, and hosted the opening ceremony and most ice sports events. It did not host the closing ceremony, though: this took place in Verona, a much smaller city in a different region, which also hosted the Paralympics opening ceremony on 6 March, 2026.
Unlike Milan, which featured for the first time as an Olympic venue, the mountain town of Cortina d’Ampezzo, in Veneto, was not new to this kind of events. Cortina had already hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956, the first Olympic event to be held in an Italian city.
We went back seventy years in this special content for intermediate and advanced learners of Italian: Olimpiadi di ieri e di oggi: Cortina 1956-2026.
Mountain lovers know Cortina as an upscale tourist resort in the Dolomites, but this was just one of the spectacular venues of the 2026 Winter Olympics: Bormio and Livigno, in Lombardy’s Valtellina, hosted the main alpine skiing events; Predazzo and Tesero, in Trentino’s Val di Fiemme, hosted ski jumping and cross-country skiing competitions; and Anterselva, in Alto-Adige, hosted biathlon events.
Were the 2026 Olympics a logistical nightmare?
As an article on the New York Times pointed out, the cross-country nature of the 2026 Winter Olympics could very well turn out to be a logistical nightmare, due to long distances, narrow roads, complex connections, and the heavy snowfall that affected Cortina and other mountain locations.
While at first snow cannons and even helicopters were being used to bring in snow to the bare slopes of the Alps and Prealps, closer to the opening ceremony intensive snow storms and fog created even more difficulties. Traveling around northern Italy to follow the various competitions required some planning, but local infrastructure was improved and new tunnels were completed just before the Games. All things considered, it is safe to say that everything went pretty smoothly in the end.
The Olympic flame crossed all 20 Italian regions
Not just northern Italy: the torch relay for the 2026 Winter Olympics – il viaggio della fiamma olimpica – touched all 20 Italian regions and 110 provinces, and some stops were truly unique. Relive this amazing journey on the official website.
The Olympic flame left Olympia on 26 November, 2025. After travelling across Greece, the flame left Athens and arrived in Rome on 4 December. From here, it went up to Florence, travelled by sea to the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, and moved back up through the peninsula, arriving in Turin on 11 January, 2026. Torino was the last Italian city to host the Olympic Games in 2006, fifty years after Cortina 1956.
From Turin, the Olympic flame travelled across northern Italy, reaching Verona on 18 January. On the 22nd it was on a gondola in Venice, making a historic passage down the Grand Canal. After a stop in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the torch reached its final destination, the San Siro Stadium in Milan, just before the opening ceremony– la cerimonia di apertura – on 6 February, 2026. ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano was one of the torch bearers on the last stop of the Olympic flame. Spaziale!
When the Olympic flame crossed the historic centre of Verona, the entire city gathered along the river Adige to witness the event. The flame was passed from one athlete or celebrity to the next, until it finally reached Sara Simeoni, the legendary high jumper who twice set a world record and won a gold medal at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Born in the province of Verona, she is considered one of the best Italian female athletes of all time.
The closing ceremony may have been the most spectacular event of the 2026 Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics opened in one of the largest stadiums in Europe, built over a hundred years ago in 1925. This was already quite impressive, but the closing ceremony – la cerimonia di chiusura – took place in a much older and more scenic venue: the 2,000-year old Arena, Verona’s Roman amphitheater.
The Milano-Cortina 2026 Closing Ceremony, themed Beauty in Action, combined art, technology, and tradition on the backdrop of the Arena, featuring opera, dance, music, and design, connecting mountains to cities and culminating in an immersive celebration of sports and Italian culture. Star dancer Roberto Bolle appeared alongside sports icons like Carolina Kostner, Deborah Compagnoni, Francesco Totti, Bebe Vio, and Jannik Sinner.
The closing ceremony took place on 22 February from 8 pm CET, and was broadcast worldwide. You can watch it on YouTube on the official Olympics channel.
Did you come to Italy during the Olympics?
Despite the official narrative celebrating Milano-Cortina 2026 as a flawlessly executed triumph, the reality was a little more nuanced. Italy genuinely earned much of the international praise it received: the atmosphere was warm and vibrant, the volunteers were widely admired, and the country showcased its landscapes and cultural flair with unmistakable style. Many athletes and visitors left with the impression of a welcoming, well‑run event.
At the same time, not everything unfolded as smoothly as the authorities suggested. Several venues were completed at the last minute, budgets swelled beyond early projections, and some mountain areas struggled with congestion and accommodation pressure. Environmental concerns also resurfaced. Italy delivered a successful Olympics, just not an effortless one.
Did you experience the Italian Winter Olympics firsthand? How did it go? Write a comment below!
Diana
Related Videos on our YouTube Channel (in Italian)
- Notizie in italiano: Milano-Cortina 2026 – Learn Italian with the News
- Verona e il Veneto – Discover the rich history of Verona beyond tourist hotspots
- Bolzano e il Trentino Alto-Adige – Life in a border territory between Italy and Austria
- Bergamo e la Lombardia – Lombardy is not just Milan and Lake Como
- Torino, la prima capitale d’Italia – Where Italy was made
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