007 Travelogue: Cortina d’Ampezzo (ITALY) 2024

Our travel day started in Innsbruck, Austria, and the travel time to Cortina d’Ampezzo on the Italian side was just over three hours. There were stops on our journey and there were traffic jams in places, so we arrived in Cortina only in the afternoon and the first thing we did was check in to our accommodation at the Hotel des Alpes. Cortina was very full at the weekend, and it didn’t help that there was a car race in the village that weekend! When the owner of the family hotel Hotel des Alpes heard that we were from Finland, he told us that part of the Finnish Olympic team stayed there in 1956 when the town last hosted the Winter Olympics. Now, the Olympics will return after 70 years in the winter of 2026 when the Milan-Cortina Olympics will be held partly there.

Accommodation: Hotel des Alpes

Address: Via La Vera 2, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy

Room Type: Economy Triple Room

Price: 436,08 EUR / 2 nights / 3 persons, including breakfast

Reservation: via hotel’s own pages

Bond fans will of course remember Cortina as a filming location for the film “For Your Eyes Only” (1981). One of the key filming locations was the central square of Cortina, where the villains on their motorbikes harass Bond (Roger Moore) and Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet). The winter conditions of the film’s filming included a remarkable amount of snow sculptures, which can be seen nicely in the background of the shots. A Finnish snow sculpture group was also there during the filming in 1981 for a snow sculpture competition and came in a great third place. You can read (in Finnish) more about the event, told by snow sculptor Tuomo Jantunen, where they even got to interview Roger Moore, here.

At the time of our visit, the “Coppa d’oro delle Dolomiti” car race was taking place in Cortina and we took a few pictures of the great historic rally cars.

Of course, we had a meeting the next morning at 10 am at the top of Tofana, where we looked for our Italian contact Luigi Ferrara 🙂 The cable car ride to Tofana at 3244 meters is breathtaking. There are plenty of stunning landscapes and the views from the top are incredible when the weather is clear. The clouds can move quickly, and clear weather can turn cloudy in seconds.

As we descended by cable car, we saw the bobsled track that Bond skis down in the film. Track was being repaired for the 2026 Olympics.

Bond meets Kristatos (Julian Glover) and Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson) at an ice sports center, next to which is an ice hockey rink, which Bond also visits in the film. Today, the outdoor ice rink is replaced by a children’s playground. The bar that appears in the film is still in the same place.

Another memorable scene is the moment in the ski jumping tower, when Bond has to show off his ski jumping skills, as well as his skiing skills, while motorcyclists chase him down the ski slope!

Bond checks into the Miramonti Majestic Grand Hotel in the film, which was unfortunately closed during our visit. In the film, Bond’s room is number 300, which is not found in the hotel. The interior shots were shot at Pinewood Studios. But the scene where Bond goes to the balcony to admire the views of Cortina was shot in room 108.

More photos we took from outside the hotel can be found here:

From Italy we head back to the Austrian side to Sölden, where you can find the 007 Elements – an interactive exhibition and the filming locations for the movie “SPECTRE“. Stay tuned!

See more 007 TRAVELOGUES here