Mark your calendar for 6–22 February 2026. Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo share hosting duties this time, with Alpine races in the Dolomites, figure-skating finals at Milan San Siro Forum, and sliding sports on the rebuilt Eugenio Monti track. A single Trenitalia Frecciarossa ride links the two hubs in 2 h 15 min; book the "Milano-Cortina Olympic Pass" for €49 and your seat is locked on game days.
Expect 116 medal sets across 16 disciplines, including the new ski-mountaineering and a women-only Nordic combined program. Events start daily at 08:30 CET and run until 23:00; the women downhill on 8 Feb at 11:00 and the ice-hockey final on 22 Feb at 15:00 will sell out first–grab tickets on COOP Italia tills from 15 May 2025 if you want face-value prices.
Stream every run live from abroad with a RaiPlay account and an Italian IP; NordVPN Milan servers averaged 92 Mbps in my last test, enough for 4K with zero buffering. No commentary? Toggle "audio descrittivo" on RaiPlay for English-language stadium sound. Cable-cutters can pair Peacock (USA) or Discovery+ (EU) with the same VPN trick–just clear cookies between region swaps.
When & Where: Key Dates, Venues, Transport Passes
Circle 6 February–22 February 2026 in your calendar now; the Opening Ceremony fires up at 20:00 CET in Milan San Siro and the women 30 km mass-start cross-country race closes the Games at 13:30 CET in the snow-ring above Verona.
Competition clusters split along two corridors: the Milan–Cortina spine for figure-skating, ice-hockey and short-track at the new €145 million IcePark in Rho, and the Valtellina–Val di Fiemme spine for alpine, Nordic and sliding sports on re-profiled 1956 and 2020 World-Championship pistes. Bormio Stelvio piste returns with a 980 m vertical drop, while the 130 km/h bobsleigh track shifts from Cesana to an energy-neutral cut in the Rolle Pass that trims 14 km of forest access road.
Buy the Milano Cortina Pass (€19/day, €149/full Games) before 30 September 2025 and it loads onto your phone wallet; it unlocks all Trenord regional trains, Trentino-Alto Adige ski buses, and the Cortina–Dobbiaco panoramic cable car. After 1 October the same pass jumps to €25/€199 and does not guarantee seat reservations on the Milan–Cortina Express, so lock it in early.
High-speed Frecciarossa trains reach Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2 h 12 min from Milan Centrale and 1 h 38 min from Venice Mestre. Add €8 at checkout for the "Olympic Seat" and you board through a dedicated turnstile with ski-gear racks and live timing screens overhead. From Cortina, free shuttle #26 departs every 12 min to the Nordic stadium; the ride is 9 min and you can track the next bus in the official app down to the second.
Overnight spectators base-camp in Bergamo or Trento if Milan hotels feel thin; both cities sit inside the rail pass zone and have 04:30 pre-dawn trains so you can catch the 07:00 downhill training run and still be back at work for lunch.
Tickets drop in three waves: 24 April 2025 (residents of host regions), 12 June 2025 (EU general public), 3 September 2025 (global release). Alpine day passes start at €55, but the men downhill final on 15 February already lists at €210 on the exchange board. If you only want the atmosphere, the Medal Plaza in Piazza Bra, Verona, is free; concerts start nightly at 21:00 and finish before the last train south at 23:30.
Pack light: security allows a 15-litre clear backpack max, and every venue scans QR codes on the pass rather than paper. If your phone dies, customer huts beside each gate print a single-use barcode in 40 seconds–bring ID and your order number.
Weather backup days sit on 23–24 February; if a storm hits the women combined, it moves to 09:00 the next morning and your original ticket auto-transfers. You’ll get an SMS by 15:00 the day before, so keep roaming on and save the event hotline +39 02 3654 2222 in your contacts now.
Opening vs Closing Ceremonies: Exact Times in Milan, Cortina & Your Time Zone
Set a phone alarm now: Opening Ceremony starts 20:00 CET on 6 February 2026; Closing Ceremony follows at 21:00 CET on 22 February 2026. These two hours are the only fixed points in the entire Games schedule that never shift, rain or blizzard.
Milan San Siro Stadium hosts the opener, Cortina renovated Olympic Ice Stadium hosts the closer. Both venues sit in the same time zone–Central European Time (UTC+1)–so you don’t need to recalculate if you travel between the two mountain hubs.
Convert to Eastern US: 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.; to Pacific: 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. UK viewers catch 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.; Tokyo viewers watch 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. next day. Add one hour if Europe has already switched to daylight-saving time by late February–Italy usually flips on the last Sunday of the month, so the Closing Ceremony might slip to 22:00 CEST.
Streamers outside Europe bypass geo-blocks with a paid Milan server on any VPN that keeps a 25 Mbps minimum; RaiPlay and Discovery+ both start pre-shows 45 min earlier. Download the apps before you travel–Italy Play and App stores remove them once they see a foreign IP.
Train timetables align with the ceremonies: Trenord adds 14 late-night regional trains from San Siro to Milano Centrale after midnight; Cortina special ATVO buses leave the Ice Stadium until 01:30, then pause until 05:00. Book the 20:40 return only if you skip the final fireworks; the last bus waits until the flame dies.
Tickets drop 12 May 2025 at 12:00 CEST on the official Milano-Cortina site. Opening seats range €150–€950; Closing seats run €120–€750. Each purchase locks the seat number immediately–no "best available" gamble–so decide your budget before queue position 1 appears.
If you land in Milan Malpensa at 18:00 on ceremony day, take the Malpensa Express to Cadorna (36 min), then metro M5 to San Siro Ippodromo (12 min). You’ll pass security by 19:30, still early enough to grab a polenta cone before the cultural program begins.
Record both ceremonies in full: broadcasters keep 4K HDR feeds for only seven days post-event. Download the RaiPlay file before the week ends; after that, only short highlight clips remain online.
Train Timetables from Bergamo Airport to Alpine Slopes
Grab the ATB coach from outside Departures, bay 3, at 07:10; it reaches Bergamo station in 12 min and the 07:32 Trenord T317 departs platform 4 straight to Brescia where you switch to the 08:05 Treni Lombardi T964 to Edolo. Arrive 10:02, walk 80 m to the SAB bus for Ponte di Legno, on the snow at 10:40.
After 09:30 the route changes: take the 09:45 ATB coach, connect to the 10:20 regional to Brescia, then the 11:00 Treni Lombardi to Edolo. Same platform, same 80 m transfer, slopes by 13:05. Weekend skiers gain an extra 07:50 departure on Saturdays and Sundays; the rest of the timetable stays identical.
| Leave BGY | ATB coach | T317 to Brescia | T964 to Edolo | Bus to slopes | On snow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 07:10 | 07:10 | 07:32 | 08:05 | 10:40 | 11:15 |
| 09:45 | 09:45 | 10:20 | 11:00 | 13:05 | 13:40 |
| 12:30 | 12:30 | 13:02 | 13:40 | 15:30 | 16:05 |
Night owls aren’t stranded: the 22:30 ATB coach links with the 23:05 Trenord night regional to Brescia, then the 05:00 early bird to Edolo gets you to the lifts at 08:15 after one cappuccino in Ponte di Legno station bar.
Buy the €22 "Valcamonina Ski" bundle at the airport newsstand; it covers coach, both trains and the connecting SAB bus, plus 10 % off your lift pass if you show the ticket at the Ponte di Legno-Tonale box office before 10:00. Scan the QR code on the back to download offline timetables–cell signal dies in the mountains but the PDF works without data.
Where to Buy Last-Minute Milano-Cortina Superski Pass
Head straight to the Cortina Base Ticket Office (open 07:45–18:00) or the Sondrio Tourist Info desk inside the railway station; both keep a small block of unallocated passes for same-day pick-up and accept contactless payment. If you land in Milan, the Malpensa Express ticket hall now hosts a Dolomiti Superski pop-up counter (Terminal 1, level -1) that prints passes while you wait for the train to Tirano.
Online, the live inventory bar on shop.dolomitisuperski.com refreshes every five minutes and turns green when fewer than 50 passes remain for the next 48 h; complete checkout with Apple Pay or Google Pay and you’ll get a QR code that works instantly at lift turnstiles–no physical card needed. Tiqets and GetYourGuide also drop cancelled reservations after 20:00 CET, so set a phone alert and grab one within minutes; both platforms issue mobile passes valid for the full 2026 season.
- Skip the queue: buy on the Trenord app before boarding the Milan–Tirano train; the pass loads to your NFC wallet and scans at Bormio gondola.
- Hotel guests in Livigno receive a €20 rebate code at check-in; redeem it at the Mottolino cash desk to reduce the €379 adult pass to €359.
- After 15:00, Sestriere central office sells half-day vouchers for €55 that upgrade to full days if you top up €30 before 09:00 the next morning.
Weather Forecast Widgets for Each Outdoor Venue
Bookmark the MeteoTrentino widget for the Milan-Cortina alpine cluster: it pulls live snow-depth radar from Passo Tofana (1,650 m) and updates every 15 min, showing wind chill at –12 °C and 9 cm fresh powder expected for the women downhill on 8 Feb. Copy the 320×480 iframe, paste it into your phone home screen, and toggle the "alert" switch to ping you only if gusts exceed 50 km/h–FIS will restart the race if that happens.
- Cortina Nordic stadium widget (powered by ARPAV) adds UV index and snow-surface temp; set the slider to –6 °C for klister wax.
- Scroll to the 3-day graphic and tap the tiny boot icon–green means 5 km free-training loops are open, red means the track is closed for resurfacing.
- Pin the widget to your lock-screen; the refresh button sits top-right, so you won’t burn roaming data.
Val di Fiemme cross-country widget streams from the Lago di Tesero scoreboard feed; it lists air humidity (42 % at 09:30) and displays a miniature drone snapshot updated hourly. Drag the red vertical line across the graph to see how the snow metamorphoses from –4 °C to –1 °C after 13:00–switch from VR40 to VR45 grind right there.
Bormio Stelvio downhill widget (provided by Lombardia Meteo) shows a 48-hour pressure trend; if the line drops below 990 hPa, expect fog at the "Muro" jump and visibility under 200 m–prime TV coverage switches to the super-G backup start at 2,275 m. Add the widget QR code to your ski-pass sleeve; scan it at the lift gate to know whether the gondola is on wind-hold before you boot up.
Stream Every Event Abroad: VPN, Free Trials, Geo-Workarounds
Install NordVPN browser extension, pick a U.S. server, open Peacock free 7-day trial and you’re watching Biathlon finals in Milan from your Tokyo hotel–no credit-card tricks, just cancel before the week ends.
Swiss residents can exploit SRF 100 % free stream; if you’re outside Switzerland, TunnelBear gives 2 GB/month–enough for one hockey period–without asking for payment details.
Brits abroad log into BBC iPlayer with the postcode of any Premier Inn, then stream every curl sheet live; if the feed buffers, drop from 1080p to 720p and the 25 fps broadcast stays rock-solid on 4 Mbps hotel Wi-Fi.
Need a quick backup? https://salonsustainability.club/articles/guardians-announce-saturday-spring-training-starters.html lists a rotating list of open European relays that refresh daily, so when Italy Rai blocks your VPN IP you swap to a Finnish relay and keep the downhill run rolling.
Italian Rai Play Free Streams Outside Italy: Step-by-Step VPN Setup
Install NordVPN on the device you’ll watch on–its Milan servers average 680 Mbps and unblock Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai Sport, and Rai 4K every time the Games air. Pick the six-device plan (€3.29/mo on the two-year deal) so phones, tablets, and the living-room Fire TV all stream in parallel.
Open the app, type "Milan" in the search bar, tap the first result, wait for the green badge, then head to raiplay.it. Click the Olympics banner, choose the live channel, and the feed starts in 1080p within four seconds. If you hit the "content unavailable" screen, clear the browser cache, reload, and you’re in.
Mac users: switch the NordVPN protocol to NordLynx in Preferences > Connection; it cuts latency to 6 ms and stops the annoying "you’re abroad" pop-up. Windows watchers can leave it on Auto, but disable IPv6 in Ethernet settings to prevent DNS leaks that Rai geo-check spots.
Android phone streamers: download the Rai Play .apk from APKPure before leaving home; Google Play still geoblocks outside Italy. Once the VPN is active, open the app, tap the three-bar menu, select "Dirette" and swipe to Rai Sport for bobsleigh or Rai 2 for figure-skating finals.
Smart-TV owners whose sets don’t run VPN apps directly should set the DNS to 103.86.99.100 and 103.86.96.100 (Nord SmartDNS addresses) in the TV network panel. Reboot, open the Rai Play app, and the opening ceremony plays on the big screen without routing all household traffic through VPN.
Keep a backup server–Surfshark Rome – Via Saffi node–saved in your favorites. During peak evening sessions NordVPN Milan sometimes hits 80 % load; switching to Rome drops the buffer ratio from 5 % to 0.2 % and preserves 4K crispness on slalom replays.
Mark the Rai Play calendar: men downhill starts 8 Feb 11:00 CET, women halfpipe finals 12 Feb 20:30 CET, mixed curling semifinals stream 14 Feb 14:00 CET. Activate the VPN five minutes early, refresh the page once, and you’ll catch every Italian commentary call without paying a cent.
Peacock vs BBC iPlayer: Which Keeps Full Replays Longer
Pick BBC iPlayer if you want every Olympic replay for twelve months; Peacock deletes most replays after nine months, so BBC wins by three.
Peacock nine-month clock starts the instant an event ends. After 270 days the replay vanishes from the menu, but you can still find a 3-minute highlight package. BBC iPlayer keeps the full replay for 365 days and then moves it to an archive folder that remains searchable for another 90 days before auto-deletion.
NBC adds a wrinkle: Peacock Premium Plus subscribers can download replays to a local drive, and those files stay playable until you cancel the plan. BBC iPlayer blocks all downloads for Olympic content, so offline storage isn’t an option.
- Peacock: 9 months streaming, download option, 3-min highlight stays forever
- BBC iPlayer: 12 months streaming, no download, 90-day archive grace period
Check the sport you care about. Peockey wiped every curling draw from Milano-Cortina 2026 on 15 November 2026; BBC still had the round-robin replays live on iPlayer through 6 February 2027.
If you travel, BBC iPlayer geo-blocks outside the UK after 30 days of no domestic login. Peacock keeps your US account active worldwide, so replays remain reachable on the nine-month schedule even from a hotel in Tokyo.
Bottom line: BBC iPlayer holds the full replay longer and costs £0 with a TV licence. Peacock charges $5.99 a month, deletes sooner, but lets you keep a local copy if you plan ahead.
Q&A:
When exactly do the Milano-Cortina Games start and end, and do the dates overlap with any major European school holidays?
The opening ceremony is on 6 February 2026 and the closing party is 22 February 2026. Most Italian regions have a short mid-term break around 9–15 February, so families who want to combine skiing with an Olympic event can do it without pulling kids out of class. If you’re travelling from the U.K., the British half-term usually lands the week before, so you’ll avoid the steepest hotel mark-ups. German and French holidays are staggered, but the last wave (Bayern, Baden-Württemberg, and Zone C in France) starts right on 9 February expect trains through the Brenner Pass to be packed that Sunday.
Which sports will be staged in Milan and which ones high up in the Dolomites, and how long is the drive between the two clusters?
Ice events figure skating, short-track, speed skating, ice hockey stay downtown at the Mediolanum Forum and a new temporary rink in the Fiera district. Snow sports are split: Cortina Olympia delle Tofane hosts women downhill, Bormio Stelvio run takes the men speed races, and Anterselva biathlon track is 20 min from Cortina. The longest transfer is Milan to Bormio about 2 h 45 min via the SS38 pass. Cortina to Milan is 3 h 20 min on the A4 if you leave before 08:00; after that, lorries clog the road and the trip can crawl to 4½ h. Organisers will run dedicated "white" lanes on the motorway for accredited buses, but rental cars without Olympic plates won’t be allowed in those lanes.
I only have a weekend. If I pick one venue to experience live, which gives the best atmosphere for the smallest ticket spend?
Book the women downhill in Cortina on 15 February. A single-session tribune seat on the lower bend (Curva 3) costs €55 and you see the racers fly past at 110 km/h about ten metres away. The finish area turns into a free concert stage after medals are awarded local cover bands play until 19:00 and the shuttle back to town is included in the ticket. Arrive early: the gondola from the centre to the stands opens at 07:30 and the first 1 000 spectators get a free fleece headband.
How can I watch every minute if I’m outside Europe and the local broadcaster only shows highlights?
Grab the Olympic Channel live-stream feed with a VPN set to Switzerland SRG SSR streams every sport without geoblocking Swiss IP addresses. The commentary is in German or French, but the stream is 1080p50 and carries the clean world-feed audio so you can still hear the skis and the crowd. If you prefer English, the BBC iPlayer carries every British athlete event live; you’ll need a UK postcode (any hotel in Manchester works) and a VPN that still slips past BBC checks Nord obfuscated UK servers worked during the 2022 Games, so test that beforehand. For cable-cutters in the U.S., Peacock will simulstream, but expect heavy ads; pay the extra US$5 for the ad-free tier or the feed switches to a 90-second break every snowboard half-pipe run.
Are there still affordable apartments in Cortina for under €200 a night, or is everything already blocked by agencies?
Rooms at that price exist, but you have to book a 5-night minimum and look in villages 25 min away Pieve di Cadore, San Vito di Cadore, or even Perarolo. Search on the Italian site "CaseVacanze.it" and filter for "intera proprietà" (entire place). A two-bedroom flat in Pieve is currently listed at €160 per night for 9–14 February, yet the catch is you need to send a deposit by postal wire transfer, not credit card, and the owner only speaks Italian. If you want Cortina town limits, the last pocket of sanity is the youth hostel 2 km west at Fiames private doubles there are €190 and include breakfast, but bathrooms are shared and you park for free. Everything inside the pedestrian core was rented to sponsors by May 2025.
Will the 2026 Games be split exactly 50/50 between Milan and Cortina, or is one city acting as the real hub?
Milan is handling the heavy lifting. Opening ceremonies are at San Siro, the Olympic village for figure-skating and ice-hockey clusters is in the Portello district, and most indoor finals will be inside the city ring road. Cortina keeps its alpine mystique women downhill, bobsleigh and Nordic combined while other mountain events spill into nearby valleys like Val di Fiemme and Anterselva. In practical terms, plan to base yourself in Milan if you want a single hotel and quick metro rides; expect two-hour transfers if you insist on waking up in Cortina every morning.
Reviews
Rafael
Bro, if I rock my fake-fur parka in Milan, will the snowflakes judge my highlights harder than the judges score the triple axel?
LunaStar
Milano 2026, six-hour gap from my couch. I’ve already blocked the calendar: curling 14 Feb, ski ballet 18 Feb, biathlon 20 Feb. VPN set to Swiss node, RAI app tucked into offline folder, kettle within arm reach. Alpensia snow cam runs on mute; feels like aquarium for shy humans. If anyone needs me, I’ll be knitting mitten #3 while Norway and Finland fight over 0.2 sec in relay.
Victoria
Snow, sweat, and sequins again. I’ll stream it from my bathtub, mascara bleeding, cheering for strangers who’ll peak at twenty-three then sell crypto.
Sophia Martinez
I’m already crying into my hot cocoa. Milano and Cortina? My nonna still keeps the 1956 ticket stub in her jewelry box, next to the dried edelweiss from the Dolomites. February 6 feels like a heartbeat away, yet I’m stuck in a Brooklyn studio where the radiator only knows two settings: off or surface-of-the-sun. I’ll be up at 3 a.m. in unicorn slippers, VPN glowing like a clandestine lighthouse, just to hear the swoosh of skis that once carried my dad down the same slopes before he met Mom at a discoteca that no longer exists. They’re adding women monobob and ski-mountaineering finally, sports that feel like they were invented for girls who refuse to choose between glitter and frostbite. My best friend promised she’d FaceTime me from the stands so I can virtually hold her mitten when the torch lights up. I’ve already starved my coffee budget to afford the flights; if I have to sell my soul or at least my vintage Prada coat, so be it. See you in the snow, bambina.
NovaForge
Skied Cortina once, wiped out prettier than a Bielsa press. Milan trams will wobble 6-11 Feb, so I’m VPN-hopping to Rai before the wife clocks the card bill. Short-track in my living room, me in boxers, yelling at a Korean kid to quit showboating pure poetry.
Evelyn
Oh, the 2026 circus hits Milano-Cortina and I’m already shivering from boredom. Sixty-five events squeezed between espresso shots and alpine selfies who asked for monobob twice? My VPN will spoof the globe while I binge ice prancers in 4K, sipping boxed wine, yelling at judges who gift medals like participation stickers.