Winter Olympics in Milan

 A blog post for our recent trip to Milan to catch some of this year's Winter Olympic Games.

Amy has been dreaming about the idea of attending a winter olympics for as long as I have known her -- it has been an ambition for quite some time. When she heard about the 2026 Olympics in Milan and Cortina she decided to put her name into the hat for tickets, and with some persistence and a bit of luck she was able to buy tickets for us. She opted to keep things simple and just apply for tickets in Milan (as opposed to the skiing events in Cortina and other mountain towns); I think this was a wise decision.

We flew out on a Friday night (Delta), connecting through Frankfurt and eventually getting into Milan late Saturday morning.

Saturday:

Easy subway ride from the airport into the city (Amy had carefully picked the flights so as to arrive in Linate airport, which is only about 7km from the city center). The Airbnb at which we were staying kindly agreed to let us check in a bit early, much to our relief -- that gave us time for a short nap and trip to the local grocery store ("Tigros") to buy provisions.

Later in the evening it was back onto the subway and off to our first event: short track speed skating. We had a bit of a snafu on the way there-- we picked the wrong flavor of train and had to backtrack -- at the Famagosta stop the line bifurcates and we wound up on the wrong fork, but it was not hard to correct our goof.

The short track skating events were held at the Assago Milanofiori Forum, a medium-sized arena.  The vibe at the arena was great -- tons of Dutch fans dressed in orange, loudly supporting their skating countrymen, also lots of Canadians, a few Americans, plenty of Italian, Chinese, and Korean flags as well.

Short track is a hoot to watch; the races usually begin at a somewhat slow pace, then get faster and faster, eventually finishing with everyone going flat out trying to win. The corners on the track are very tight, which means that there are only specific places where you can pass effectively (it also means that it's a big advantage to be at the head of the pack).

There is always some pushing and jostling, and in nearly every race there's at least one skater who winds up setting a skate wrong and crashing out (the sides of the rink are lined with huge, thick foam pads). Nearly all the races are full of surprises, some minor and some huge -- we saw one heat where four out of the five front skaters crashed, leaving the person who had been struggling at the rear to sail into a first place finish without breaking a sweat. Very fun to watch,  it was a good way to kick off the games for us.

On this particular occasion we decided that we would try to pass as Canadians, with the neckware to prove it :-)

Sunday:

Amy arranged a bike tour for us, which was excellent. The weather was pleasant -- sunny, in the high 40's to start and warming up through the afternoon.  Did not feel like winter at all, especially odd when you consider that the latitude of Milan (45.47 North) is about the same as Montreal Canada -- seems as though it should be much colder!

Predictably when we arrived at the tour company there were big crowds of mostly Dutch people getting ready to cycle; our group of about 10 English speakers was outnumbered 2 or 3 to one with other Dutch groups. We visited various interesting city landmarks -- the Bosco Verticale apartment buildings (covered with trees growing out of them), the Cimitero Monumentale (amazing statuary), the Sforza Castle, a stretch of Chinatown, and a meandering route through various parks.

We also stopped at the Casa Di Riposa per Musicisti, a retirement home for musicians created by the composer Verdi (Verdi's tomb is also there). 

You have to choose your routes carefully in the Milan city center, since there are streetcar tracks (hard to cycle on) and quite a few large roads that still have cobblestones (really big stones as well, and very irregular). The tour did a nice job steering around these obstacles.

A shot from within the castle. The design in the center (serpent devouring a small red child) is seen all over the place in Milan, both ubiquitous and slightly disturbing. 

We were hungry after the ride and found a local cafe advertising "typical Milanese" cuisine, so we dug in (cutlets, polenta, pizza, sauteed chicory).  In fact the meal was so substantial we decided to punt on our dinner reservations that night (we were both a bit bushed as well). 

Monday

Short track again today, this time in the morning. Women's 1000 meter, super exciting, very lively competition. There was some crazy stuff in one of the heats-- one of the skaters lost her footing, collided with two others, then the whole collection went down and into the pads, but in the process one of the skaters got a cut over her eye from a skate blade. Blood on the ice and everything; the medics rushed out, and the support staff cordoned her off with what looked like sheets while they were working on her. We found out later that it was not a life threatening situation, she was ok (aside from the nasty cut).

The short track arena:

In this photo you can see some of the support crew that help with the short track races, they are the skaters in jeans and sweatshirts.  They help prepare the track before the race (locating and patching rough spots in the ice, prepping the curves) and then during the races they help keep the course posts in place. The posts are visible below, little black dots, basically rubber discs -- during the racing they tend to get dislodged, and when this happens a crew member will zoom in and replace or reposition them while the race is till underway. The other peculiar support crew duty is wetting down the crucial paths at the end of the track (the turns) -- you can see a person with a bucket below basically dumping water on the part of the track where the skaters are going to be doing their tightest turns.

Lots of Dutch fans -- they were omnipresent.

Outside the arena:

The medal winners on promenade:

Tuesday

Amy had arranged timed tickets in the morning for us to visit the Duomo, specifically the "terraces", which is basically a section of the roof of the cathedral that you can walk out on. That was amazing, the stone work on the Duomo is fantastic. 

There were several crews of workers laboring away fixing or replacing bits of stone work (for buildings of this size the repair work is never-ending).  Here is a block of the lovely creamy marble that makes up the Duomo, getting ready to be put in somewhere or carved down:

Later in the day we had our first long track speed skating event.  The long track races took place in an entirely different arena in another section of the city off to the northwest. Getting out there was a lengthy process -- first a 50 minute subway ride, and then at the end of the line a 15-20 minute walk just to get from one end of the complex to the other. The arena itself was great, however; seats sitting lower and closer to the ice than the short track arena, and with a bit more elbow room.

The race on order was mens team pursuit: three racers on each team, two teams on the ice at the same time, starting at opposite ends of the oval and racing against the clock. The racers on each time are all skating at the same time (not like a track relay race) and the time of the team is the time of the slowest racer.

There is some interesting recent history with this event: originally the teams would rotate the lead every few laps (since being in front is a lot more work, due to wind resistance). A couple of years back however the American team came up with an innovation, which was to keep the same ordering but have the middle and back skaters literally push on the lead skater to give him/her more momentum. Sounds (and looks weird) but it does indeed turn out to be a winning strategy, and within a year or so everyone had adopted the new technique.

You can see the skaters tucked tightly together in this shot. They also work hard to make sure that arms and legs are synchronized (more aerodynamic that way).

Italian skaters took gold, US men took silver:

Fun to watch, although the ice preparation is very time consuming -- you spend a lot of time watching the Zamboni machines and then waiting for the ice to properly freeze when they are done.

Dinner at Bele Ristorante in the Navigli area. Excellent food, it was a nice meal.  We tried an appetizer dish made with roasted cardoons, which I had never had before -- this is a vegetable that looks vaguely like oversized celery, but has a flavor that reminded us a bit of artichoke (although more bitter).  I asked for them to choose wines for me, and they brought out some nice selections that I had never heard of (not a hard task since I know next to nothing about Italian wines to begin with). This one was my favorite:

Wednesday

At noon we went to see our one hockey game, a quarter-final match between Germany and Slovakia. The Slovak team was definitely much stronger, it wasn't quite a romp, but it was clear they were the better team. Lots of fans from both nations, plenty of them wearing the jerseys and toting flags.

The hockey arena. This is the facility that they were racing to finish right up to the last minute (if I had not read this, I would have had a hard time guessing however).

In the evening at 8 we had another short track event, huzzah. Lots of flags and skating super-fans:

Skaters getting ready:

In the runup to the race there was also this camera person -- not sure why the all-white "moon suit" but that seemed to be the pattern. These guys were maybe a bit too zealous with their photography, they would literally be putting their cameras right in the faces of the athletes getting ready to race.

You can see how tight the angles are for the turns from this photo. 

Thursday

Amy had booked us on a walking tour in the morning, this one starting at the church that hosts Michelangelo's "Last Supper" and then wandering around the city, finishing at the Duomo. The weather was unfortunately not great -- cold and rainy, rain quite heavy at times unfortunately (I was wishing I had brought my rain pants). At the start of the tour one of the folks in the group pointed out a guy selling umbrellas down the street, so I decided to splurge and buy a couple for us to use (in fact I was already pretty soggy at that point, just getting to the tour start, but the umbrellas helped us keep from getting too much wetter).

More city history; the guide had some interesting perspectives on life in Milan and the various characters who played key roles (e.g. Duke Sforza). Milan's "golden age" was back in the 13th to the 15th centuries; at the end of that period Milan spent a lot of time being occupied by various other great powers, including the Spanish, the Austrians, and eventually Napoleon.

The building in the background is the original Milan stock exchange (which I think maybe had something to do with the sculptor's choice of finger gesture in the foreground?).

Lunch at a restaurant in the city center, Rovello. Food quite good, I had grilled octopus (superbly tasty).

In the afternoon: more long track speed skating! This was an exciting session, since it featured the American skater Jordan Stolz, who had already won the 500m and 1000m events and was seeking to prevail again for 1500m.  The races were amazing, the Olympic record for the event was broken not once but twice(!). Phenomenal performances.

Friday

Timed tickets in the morning for the Pinacoteca di Brera, which was quite something. Amazing collection of Italian paintings, the bulk between 13th - 15th century, but plenty after that as well. Very heavily skewed towards religious subjects, we saw every conceivable take on Jesus, Mary, and the saints.  After that we made our way to the shopping district (in the same neighborhood), Amy shopped for clothing and souvenirs and I did my best to entertain myself (I tend to run out of patience/endurance very quickly when on shopping trips -- give me the grocery store with a specific list any day).

We also located a bike rental place ("Unlimited Biking") and rented a couple of city bikes for 24 hours -- biking home was a bit odd since all the streets that looked good on the map turned out to have various biking hazards (cobblestones, streetcars, etc) but we did eventually make it back.

I had a nice 90 minute ride in the afternoon for exercise, I biked from our apartment down to the nearby town of Gaggiano along the canal -- excellent riding, mostly away from the traffic.

Saturday

Another nice long bike ride in the morning. We headed in the same direction as my ride from the previous day but went bit farther, making it to the small town of Vermezzo (about 18 km). Great weather for riding, lots of other cyclists out and about.

One last long track speed skating event, the team pursuit. 

This event was won by a guy from the Netherlands, much to the delight of the legions of Dutch fans in the arena.

Sunday

Back off to the airport in the morning; we flew to via Dublin on Aer Lingus on the way back.  A good way to get home since you can go through US customs while still in Dublin, a big time saver. 

All in all a lovely trip, the races were a lot of fun and it was great to get to know a new city, especially a particularly nice one like Milan.

Sacked out on the couch a few days later (Ellie helpfully providing some much-needed dog therapy for jet lag):