In 1994 we watched the winter Olympics on television from the idyllic city of Lillehammer, Norway and even as young as we were then, we promised each other one day, we’d go to a winter Olympics and see an opening ceremony live one day. The Olympics continue to embody our most dearly held values; that even if you compete to win, you can be kind, you can accept every culture and celebrate the community of humanity, despite all our differences, no matter what is happening politically, young people, with their idealistic dreams can be the example!
Members of the German Olympic team were out enjoying the games everywhere, including in the center of Milan.
Maybe, over the years, we might have become more jaded, and certainly, the Games themselves have become big business, but we still wanted to experience a winter Olympics in European city, and 2026 was our year!
Tina and Milo, stoats, the mascots of the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics. They sold out in days before the games started, and we arrived ahead of the games, spotted on in one of the Olympic merch stores and we may have purchased the last Tina in Milan, because we never saw them available anywhere again!
It’s impossible to explain the experience of being in an Olympic city during the games, but the youthful spirit bubbles over, its a spectacle of sponsor popups, guests from all over the world, and the hosts putting on their best face for guests. Olympic travel disruptions and the costs are the downsides, but as Jeff explained it in a way to make it understandable to many…”it’s like a trip to Disney World, it can be overwhelming, nostalgic and magical, but if you think too hard about how expensive things are, you’ll just make yourself miserable!” We decided to embrace the joy…and even became part of it!
A countdown clock- one day before the start of the games!
Some of our peak experiences with Jeff’s photographs.
A torch bearer in the streets of Milan, as the Olympic flame made its way to the opening ceremony.
The Olympic Torch Relay.
We arrived in Milan early and the torch had made it’s way to Milan. A variety of special citizens got to bear the torch through the city streets for several minutes, all through the day and night, the torch was handed off in the city streets. As that happened the streets were closed to traffic, but pedestrians could watch and several times during the first few days we literally “ran into” the road block of the torch relay and experience the joy of the relay up close, shoulder to shoulder with other visitors and local folks spilling out of their homes and work places to take pride in the torch and their host city.
The Olympic Flag makes it way into the San Siro Stadium
Opening Ceremonies
Our original “bucket list” event, we were shoulder to shoulder (and foot to head!) with 10s of thousands of other people from every country! We shared a row with an executive from Airbnb (official partner!) a group of ladies from Mongolia, (who we only communicated through flags and scarfs of our countries!) A young woman from French Alps (who took a 90 minute train to attend the Opening Ceremonies) and a group of middle aged Italians who cheered loudly for their president and sang their anthem with gusto!
The highlight of the show for us was hearing Andrea Botticelli sing live, everyone had tears in their eyes to listen to a global superstar welcome people to his country. Milan put on a show that showcased their culture and Botticelli was the best of it!
Colorful nods to Italy’s culture of art and music.
Watching our US Olympic Figure Skating team win a Gold Medal
One of our tickets was for the Team Figure Skating Event; each country fields male, female, pair skaters and ice dancers and the competition is for the best team of skaters. Over two days of competition, we saw our US skaters step up and perform their personal bests and resulted in a Gold Medal for the US team. Watching a gold medal ceremony with our country was a treat we never expected to have!
Ilia Malinin executes his signature flip! Anchoring the US team to a Gold Medal
Meeting people from all over the world and experiencing their culture!
Whether on the metro or in the stands, we met people from every part of the globe. Seeing folks pride in their countries and athletes was part of the joy of being at an Olympics Games
The people from the Netherlands are massive fans of speed skating. The arenas were 3/4 full of Dutch folks in orange, many dressed up in fun costumes.
It seemed every citizen under the age of 30 was gifted a jacket, hat and ski pants…they were very friendly, but often we got conflicting information when we asked a question, but they were very welcoming!
Volunteers from all over the world working at the Ice Skating Arena
The Hospitality of the Italians
Milan put on an Olympics, but that included their legendary hospitality, locals offering advice on the ATM (Metro), hoteliers and tour guides were welcoming and stood ready to try to fulfill any request and the food…oh, the food was amazing!
Some northern Italian Specialties- shrimp tartare, fish, meatballs, and risotto
The Olympic Cauldron and home of the Olympic Flame in the Sempione Park
We went viral!
And one very funny thing happened…during the speed skating women’s 1000 m race, a hype DJ encouraged us to stand up and dance…which we often did! One time a stranger took a video of me dancing and on our way home we realized, after hearing from friends that the video and meme shared by the BBC and Olympic social sites had over a million views. The comments and video were hilarious! We ticked a lot of amazing adventures of our bucket list with our Milano Cortina Olympic trip, but “becoming internet clowns for 15 minutes” was not on our bingo card!
Notes on who helped with our trip!
We booked our accommodations and event tickets through Roadtrips, a sports travel agency that excels with large sporting events. In addition to securing our tickets to events, without us having to join the lottery, they provided two on site concierges and accommodations at a five star hotel in center Milan, The Chateau Monfort We arranged all of our local tours through Discover Your Italy, an Italy Specialty Tour Agency that we’ve used in the past and have provided top experiences in the past for us.Their flexibility working with us to fit tours and dinners in Milan and Como around our event tickets was exceptional and their guides are always among the best! For more about our time in Milan, see our post 48 Hours in Milan (coming soon)
Below: Chateau Monfort
