The best ski resorts in Eastern Europe

Kopaonik, Serbia

Some of the best beginner terrain in Eastern Europe

In the Eighties, this resort in central Serbia had a strong following among British skiers looking for easy slopes and low prices. It saw itself as a young rival to Andorra. Then in the early Nineties came the Bosnian war, followed by Kosovo, making the resort a no-go area, and tour operators looked elsewhere. The nearest airport with direct flights is Belgrade, four hours and 15 minutes away.

The resort has no real hub – it’s more a collection of individual hotels, some of them pleasantly imposing, set in extensive woodland with shops, restaurants and bars scattered around the hotels. These days, the clientele is made up mostly of visitors from other Balkan countries. It’s a shame because Kopaonik has attracted substantial post-war investment and now has some of the best beginner and lower-intermediate terrain in the whole of Eastern Europe.

Modern chairs and drag-lifts take you up through a landscape of frozen, stunted pine trees to twin 2,000m peaks. From here, 57km of well-maintained slopes meander back down the mountain to provide wide, tree-lined novice slopes where turning is mostly an option rather than a necessity for controlling speed.

Second- and third-weekers have plenty of slopes for improvement. Experts are limited to a couple of short, sharp blacks which are not always open early in the season. Piste gradings are overenthusiastic: almost every run would be classified ‘easy’ in an Alpine resort. There’s also a 450m terrain park, the largest in Serbia, with well-maintained boxes, rails and a 12m kicker.

Plan your trip

The four-star ski-in/ski-out Family Hotel Angella (mkresort.com) has undergone a complete makeover and now has a spa centre. It offers rooms from €49 per night, excluding travel. Wizz Air (wizzair.com) flies from London Luton to Belgrade.

Telegraph