12 best ski resorts across Europe

Sign as much as Simon Calder’s free journey e-mail for skilled recommendation and money-saving reductions

Get Simon Calder’s Travel e-mail

People usually ask “which is the best ski resort?” – however there are as many solutions to that query as there are kinds of skier and snowboarder.

Beginners will need to be on completely different pistes to hurry demons, whereas younger households won’t just like the après haunts favoured by get together animals.

There are additionally journeys to the slopes by practice for the extra sustainably minded, nice worth and catered chalet breaks (relying in your funds) and winter wonderlands for strolling in case your companion doesn’t fancy snowboarding.

With so many snow sports activities locations to select from, right here’s a choice of resorts chosen with sure kinds of skiers in thoughts, to assist your 2024/2025 winter vacation go as easily as a groomed inexperienced run.

Read extra on snowboarding holidays:

The Three Valleys, France

Best: By practice

You can attain many ski resorts in Austria and Switzerland by practice (see snowcarbon.co.uk) however none is as handy because the direct service from St Pancras to the French Alps.

Eurostar cancelled its common service in 2020, however tour operator Travelski Express stepped in to supply direct trains as a part of a package deal deal that features ski passes and lodging in sure resorts.

In 2022 it added extra resorts, together with two extra within the huge Three Valleys ski space: high-altitude Val Thorens and stylish Courchevel. You journey out on Friday evening so you may ski for seven days on the planet’s greatest ski space and return the next Saturday night.

Borovets, Bulgaria

Best: On a funds

Borovets in (*12*)Bulgaria got here second within the Post Office’s annual survey of best-value ski resorts. But what’s it like?

The 58km of slopes are unfold over three distinct sectors. The highest, Markudjik, has Alpine-like views across snowy peaks. In Sitnyakovo, inexperienced persons’ pistes wind via dense fir forest crossing steep crimson and black runs with views of the modernist village.

And for those who take the egg-shaped, fibre-glass gondola (straight out of the Eighties) to Yastrebetz, you’ve spectacular views across the plain.

The instructors are good, most inns have swimming pools, and excursions are inexpensive. So it’s the hands-down alternative for these on a funds – or was till Crystal Ski launched much more funds package deal holidays to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Now that’s a vacation spot for the adventurous.

Jungfrau, Switzerland

Best for: Non-skiing companions

What to do for those who ski and your companion doesn’t? Go to Switzerland, the place trains double as ski lifts, and a service from Zurich airport cuts the journey time to the Jungfrau area by an hour.

Here you may each go to Mürren’s revolving Piz Gloria restaurant – the setting for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – with its clifftop (however secure) strolling routes. And you may recreate Bond’s well-known chase, whereas your companion takes the cable automobile again down.

It is usually walkers who take the railway contained in the imposing north face of the Eiger to the restaurant overlooking the Aletsch glacier stretching 23km into the space. Again your companion can race you down – in a practice that trundles alongside the piste.

For a extra equal contest, strive Grindelwald’s slopes, the place the pistes criss-cross runs stuffed with tobogganers via quaint villages.

Pays de Gex, France

Best for: A brief break

It might come as a shock that Geneva, which has a gentle stream of low-cost flights, has resorts which might be simply 20 minutes to an hour’s drive away.

Pays de Gex, within the Jura mountains, has three such downhill ski areas: Lélex-Crozet, Mijoux-La Faucille and Menthières. All are small, conventional communes the place raise passes begin at €20 a day.

For cross-country snowboarding, head to La Vattay-Valserine with its 130km of trails.

Söll, Austria

Best for: Après

Austria is the undisputed house of après-ski and few venues can rival the well-known Mooserwirt bar in St Anton. But for someplace cheaper strive Söll.

The get together city is common with youthful crowds with its massive, club-like venues and is a part of the enormous SkiWelt space. This in flip has teamed up with one other large space, KitzSki, a three-minute bus experience away, to supply a mixed cross. So you may earn your beers doing a circuit involving 88km of descent protecting an astonishing 17,000 vertical metres in a day.

As lengthy as you don’t overdo it on the schnapps, you may attain the slope the place Dave Ryding turned the primary Briton to win an Alpine snowboarding World Cup race in Kitzbühel in 2022. Ski laborious – have a good time tougher!

Ruka, Finland

Best for: Santa

Finland is a favorite for younger households wanting a winter vacation that focuses on visits to Santa, Northern Lights watching, cross-country snowboarding, canine and even reindeer sledding, as a lot as downhill snowboarding.

For a very long time, there have been simply two important choices – Levi and Ylläs. But a 3rd resort, Ruka, is catching up quick, with a brand new gondola and a brand new village with a extra Alpine really feel than its rivals.

The snowboarding couldn’t be extra completely different to the Alps, although. At this latitude the dawn/sundown bathes the rime-covered fences in a pink gentle for only a few hours every day, after which the slopes are floodlit. The pistes are pretty quick, although you would possibly be thankful for the excuse for decent chocolate breaks when it’s chilly, and a lot of the cabins and flats have saunas to heat up in.

You can ski in Ruka any time till early May, nevertheless British tour operators solely provide packages and direct flights till early February.

Geilo and Voss, Norway

Best for: Late-season household snowboarding

If you’re searching for an Easter break, any of the upper resorts (in addition to decrease Austrian ones, which have invested closely in environment friendly snow-making) will assure snow-covered pistes. But for these searching for a winter wonderland, Norway retains its snowy garb for longer.

The “green line” gentle rail service from Bergen airport means you may attain resorts similar to Geilo, with its 34km of pistes unfold over two sides of the valley, with only one change of practice.

And it’s value stopping at Voss, with a 3S gondola that takes you direct from the platform to the slopes. The connections from listed below are so good that you would be able to go away the slopes after 3pm and be within the airport at 5.30pm on your night flight again house.

Innsbruck, Austria

Best for: A metropolis ski break

A metropolis ski break is right for skiers who like the intense lights too, and this season 23 of Innsbruck’s cultural sights are coated by its Ski Plus City Pass, together with Lumagica – an out of doors gentle present on the Hofgarten palace.

All 13 of Innsbruck’s resorts are 15 to 75 minutes from the town centre by tram, bus or practice, they usually embody the Stubai glacier, with its 42km of runs, and Kühtai, one of many highest resorts within the Alps.

For probably the most spectacular views over the town, strive the Nordkette, which you’ll be able to attain from a brand new terminal within the metropolis centre. And don’t really feel self-conscious; you’ll see loads of different individuals in ski gear within the coronary heart of this buzzing college metropolis.

Grandvalira, Andorra

Best for: English-speaking instructors

Tiny Andorra nonetheless manages to be one of many greatest locations for British skiers. One of its biggest sights, aside from the sunshine, is the variety of native English-speaking instructors.

An extra attraction this winter is that its three ski areas have banded collectively to supply countrywide ski passes. So skiers on the lofty 210km of Grandvalira pistes that stretch from Pas de la Casa to Canillo through Soldeu can now purchase passes giving entry to the extra tree-lined 63km of slopes of Pal-Arinsal or the 30km at freeride mecca Ordino-Arcalís and vice versa.

Getting between the areas nonetheless entails buses (although tour operators hope to put on coaches for day journeys, if there’s demand), however you may take the chance to go duty-free buying en route within the capital, Andorra la Vella, which additionally has the enormous Caldea thermal spa.

Dolomiti Superski, Italy

Best for: Scenery (and historical past)

Every resort boasts spectacular surroundings, however the rose-tinted rocks of the Dolomites are particularly eye-catching. And within the Dolomiti Superski space, you get prime views as you do clockwise and anti-clockwise circuits of the magnificent Sella Gruppo massif, which is within the centre of an space that has a mass of pistes to discover, coming off it just like the spokes of a wheel.

The space is thought for its eating places, however historical past buffs may even leap on the likelihood to do the Grande Guerra circuit – a tour on skis of the trenches and fortifications of the First World War, when this space was fought over between the Austrians and Italians. The tour finishes with a ski raise with a distinction – a horse-drawn sled that tows you to Armenterola.

Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria

Best for: Spas

For spa-lovers, there can solely be one nation of alternative – Austria. Its inns are replete with a mass of steam rooms, saunas, indoor and out of doors swimming pools and leisure rooms wherein to appease aching muscle mass and reacquaint your self with numb digits after a day on the slopes.

So how to decide on between them? Well, for many who like southerly, sunny snowboarding and inexpensive costs, Ryanair this winter is flying direct to Klagenfurt from Stansted and Manchester. From right here, the spa city of Bad Kleinkirchheim is simply 50 minutes away.

The picturesque ski-in/ski-out resort has 103km of pistes, together with the difficult Franz Klammer run, as it’s house to Olympic downhill legend Franz Klammer. Perhaps you’ll even stumble upon him within the steam room…

Tignes-Val d’Isère, France

Best for: Chalet lovers

A mixture of tighter labour legal guidelines, Brexit rules, Covid fears and employees shortages meant that what was one of the vital common methods of happening a ski vacation – the catered chalet – all however disappeared in 2020.

However, after making a comeback post-pandemic within the type of the “contactless chalet”, the place you discover all of your meals pre-prepared within the fridge and have breakfast delivered day by day, eager skiers are slowly shifting again to the wined and dined way of life of chalet board luxurious.

In Val d’Isère, one in every of France’s most well-known resorts and an off-piste mecca, the chalets don’t come low-cost, however for these lusting for probably the most convivial of holidays and fireplace evenings, it could be simply the ticket.

Heading for the pistes with the entire household? Here’s why Abruzzo in Italy must be your subsequent ski vacation