Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Venice Day 1

February 23

We have read somewhere that Venice has been voted one of the top 5 least authentic cities in the world. Out of a total population of about 250,000, only about 50,000 actually live on the island of Venice with the rest either living on the mainland or on other nearby islands. This means that tourists greatly outnumber the locals. Today, we are going to visit two of the sites that draw all of these tourists, St. Mark's basilica and the Doge Palace. But first, a little history.

We had wondered what on earth possessed people to build a major city on a bunch of swampy islands. It turns out that post-Roman northern Italy was not a particularly safe location. In the 5th and 6th centuries, this area was overrun by invaders from Germany (the Visigoths) and Atilla the Hun so the refugees from nearby Roman cities like Patavium (Padua), Tarvisium (Treviso), Aquileia, Altinum and Concordia (Portogruaro) likely settled on these islands to get away from the barbarians. The city was established in 421 CE with the dedication of the church of Saint Giacomo in the Rialto section of town. The first leader (doge) was elected at the end of the 7th century, and the doges ruled Venice for about 1,100 years until Venice was conquered by Napoleon in 1797. Because of its location on the Adriatic Sea, Venice became a major sea power and was highly connected with major trade routes to the Middle East and even as far as China.

The current Saint Mark's basilica is actually the 3rd church dedicated to Mark on the same site. The first was built to house the relics of Saint Mark, basically his body with the exception of his head, which were removed from Alexandria in the early 9th century by two Venetian merchants. Because of Venice's close ties with the Byzantine empire, the original church was modeled after the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul). The current church was begun in 1063 and incorporated many of the elements of the previous two versions and has the general interior layout of a Greek cross. 

It is about a 45 min walk from our hotel to St. Mark's square (Piazza San Marco). There are signs on many of the buildings with arrows pointing to Piazza San Marco, but honestly, it is pretty easy to follow the crowds of tourists going in the same direction. Along the way, many of the shops are still filled with masks for Carnivale, which ended the week before we arrived. This goes well with our collection of masks, and we decide that we will see if we can find a nice mask that is made locally (as opposed to the cheap ones from China) for our collection.

When we get to the piazza, the place is already packed. Entry to the basilica is timed so we have a little time to kill. This gives Steve a chance to take some exterior pictures:

The original church had a brick facade, but after the pillage of Constantinople following the 4th Crusade, a lot of marble columns were brought back to Venice, sliced up and used as veneer on the outside of the church. But for us, the key is the mosaics, which were likely started by mosaicists from Constantinople and which were supported by the glass industry in Venice (more on that tomorrow). Here are some interior pictures:

There is a museum upstairs in the Church which shows some of the older mosaics, sculptures and tapestries that were recovered during renovations. It also helps us get a nice view of the Piazza San Marco:

We've got some time before our tour of the Doge Palace next door begins so we grab a couple of panini for lunch and then walk around. Here are a couple of pictures:

The bottom left of these four pictures is the outside of the Doge Palace. The lines to get in don't seem too long in the early afternoon so Beth asks if we can go into the Palace early and they agree. 

The Palace was built originally in the early 9th century and rebuilt in 1340. It was the residence of the Doge and the administrative center of the Republic of Venice for nearly one thousand years. Besides having the dominant navy in this part of the world and the riches arriving through their trade networks, one of the reasons for the long success of Venice was that their leadership believed in the rule of law and treated their populations fairly well. Here is an example:

The mouth is actually a mail slot, and the wording says that anyone can submit secret information about people who abuse their offices or who collude to hide their true income and the authorities will investigate. Here are some pictures of the Palace and the museum attached to it:

A lot of the artwork shows the leaders of Venice getting divine instruction (translation: God is on our side!). During one of the expansions, a prison was added nearby. People convicted in the courtroom in the Palace were escorted over the Bridge of Sighs where they would see their last views of Venice before being placed in a cell (bottom right picture).

On our way back to the hotel, we accidentally walk into the Rialto neighborhood where the main market area of Venice. The crowds make the area around the train station look like an uncrowded plaza! We immediately detour to find a less crowded path back. Here are some pictures:

Along the way, we come across what we were looking for, a family-owned business that makes their own Carnevale masks. They are basically constructed as with paper mache - a plaster called gesso, which is a mixture of chalk, gypsum and pigment is applied to a base along with gold leaf. We are a little worried that one won't survive being packed in our suitcases, but the cost is low enough that we are willing to risk it. We get a small ceramic one for Sean that we are sure will survive and then go for a larger one for our collection:

Carnevale is to Venice as Mardi Gras is to New Orleans. It began in Venice as early as the 13th century and was seen as a way to temporarily avoid the very rigid class hierarchies of Venice because for the Carnivale period, anyone could appear and act to be in any social class that they wished. Carnevale was banned by Napoleon and was only legally reintroduced in 1979. This style of mask is called a Volto and is the most common of the modern types of Carnevale mask. It is secured in the back with a ribbon, is typically worn by women and often combined with a headdress, scarf and/or veil. 

With our purchase in hand, we head back to the hotel. We ate too much last night so tonight we go to a trattoria. Inside, they have a bunch of quite different masks on the wall. When we ask the owner if these are a type of Carnevale mask, he says yes, but that they are from Romania. And yes, we have gelato for dessert!

For our last full day in Venice, we've planned a visit to a museum with early Renaissance paintings and a trip to the island of Murano to learn more about Venice's glass industry. Enjoy! 

Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 16 (Cortina to Venice)

February 22

Moving day again in Italy. We've got a 10:30 AM bus back to the Ponte nella Alpi - Polpet train station. We get up and have a quick breakfast. We packed the night before leaving us about an hour before we have to walk down to the bus terminal. Steve decides to take one more walk through town and see if he can trade some pins. It is another beautiful morning in Cortina:

But as you can see, there are very few people up and about on a Sunday morning except for the German bobsleigh fans who are on their way to the sliding center to see Johannes Lochner win the gold medal in 4-man bobsleigh. He manages to give away two of his last five giveaway pins but is not able to add anything to his collection.

The bus ride goes better than before. The driver already has the storage compartment open, and we are able to store our suitcases there after a little rearrangement. We notice that one of the other things in the compartment is a curling broom and remember that the men's tournament ended last night with Canada beating Great Britain 9-6, much to the dismay of the Scottish spectators.

It takes less time to get down the mountain than it took to go up so we get to the Ponte nella Alpi - Polpet station with about 40 minutes to wait before our train to Venice. When the train arrives, we try to store our bags where the bikes go, but someone beat us to it, and we have to drag our suitcases up one set of stairs to find a place to put the bags. On the 90-minute train ride, Steve tries to grab a few pictures that show the changes in the countryside as we head toward Venice:

On our way to Cortina, we changed trains at the Venice - Mestre which is on the mainland. This time, we stay on the train and ride across a long causeway to the Venice - Santa Lucia train station which is right on the grand canal. We were not quite prepared for what a tourist trap this part of Venice is. We see gondoliers hawking rides on their boats along with a lot of porters looking for clients. It is only later that we realize that the process of getting your suitcases from the train station to your hotel may require rolling them along cobblestones and over multiple bridges. Hiring a porter does not seem like such a crazy idea in that case. Fortunately for us, our hotel is only about 100 yards from the train station. We make our way up a narrow alleyway, and we can tell we are off the beaten path as the only people walking here appear to be locals. While a lot of the businesses and hotels along the alleyway look quite seedy, our hotel, The Venice Times, does not (photos courtesy of The Venice Times):

This is another boutique hotel with only 27 rooms. Most importantly, it is great to have a queen-sized bed after more than a week sleeping on a single and a trundle bed! We've got 2-3 hrs until dinner so we decide to walk around and see how far we have to go before we get away from the tourists. Beth suggests that we try to find this historic Jewish section of Venice. Most of the foot traffic is headed to either the Realto shopping district or to San Marco square and again, we can tell immediately when we have turned off the main route. We never do find the Jewish section, but we do get some pictures of what the "real" parts of Venice look like:

In the upper left of these six pictures, you will see a small floating dock. This is the Venice equivalent of a subway station. There are boats called the Vaporetto that make regularly scheduled trips to similar docks. You buy a single ride ticket or a pass for 24, 48 or 72 hours that you can use as many times as you want in that period. Except for a tiny piece of Venice near the train station that is used to service the cruise ship port, there are no roads in Venice that are large enough for cars. Everything that you would normally do by car: police, ambulance, FedEx, garbage collection, etc. is done by boat. In the bottom left picture, you see the type of boat that people in Venice would have if they owned a boat and how they park them along the sides of the smaller canals. And you get used to walking over bridges, a lot of bridges!

We find a restaurant that is close to the main tourist route, but just far enough off that the prices look reasonable. Because we prefer to eat early, we are the only ones in the restaurant and the waiter is happy to give us a table in the front window so he can show other potential diners that yes, there are people eating here. We are pretty pizza'd out from our stay in Cortina, so Beth goes for clams and spaghetti and Steve goes for a porcini mushroom ravioli. On our walk back to the hotel, we have gelato at one of the dozen or so gelaterias that we passed.

We try to watch some of the Closing Ceremonies, but it was honestly difficult to figure out what was going on in Italian. Fortunately, we've got it recorded at home so we can better appreciate it. We thought that it was interesting that they had to light an Olympic cauldron in Verona in order to extinguish it - one of the consequences of these very spread-out Games. We enjoyed the handoff to the French Alps for the 2030 Winter Olympics and Steve vows to work hard enough on his French over the next four years that he can actually have conversations in French.

This is as good a place as any to discuss our thoughts on the 2026 Winter Olympics. On the plus side, we loved the Olympic vibe in Cortina. We saw outstanding performances in almost every event we watched, highlighted by Franchesca Lollobrigida's win in the women's 3000m long-track speed skating.  We had been worried that being Americans would be a problem, but all of our interactions with both spectators and the general public were very positive. We felt welcomed no matter where we went. The venues themselves were good enough - not great, but good enough to not detract from the performances. On the negative side, the organizers managed to figure out a way to make one of Italy's greatest strengths, their food, a weakness at the venues where the food was generally terrible. The spread-out nature of these Games was also a big problem. It was hard to get to the other venues and while the transportation options were generally okay once you found them, it was often not clear how to get from point A to point B. Probably the biggest short-coming for us was the complete lack of Olympic vibe in Milano. You could walk around in many areas of the city and have no idea that the Games were even taking place. We think that this was due to lack of buy-in from the Italian public with most deciding that the costs of tickets were too high. The organizers should have done more to make it possible for most Italians to afford attending at least one event and get some Olympic spirit. With all this said, we'd rate these Olympics somewhere in the middle of the pack compared to the other 14 we've attended. Not horrible but could have been much better.

Tomorrow, we have tickets to visit Saint Mark's basilica and the Doge palace. Enjoy!