Kopaonik

The Kopaonik ski resort offers reliable snow, good infrastructure and reasonable accommodation. Why travel further afield?

With visas to international destinations difficult to obtain, most Serbs get their skiing experience at home. And most choose Kopaonik.

To be fair, Kopaonik is quite a trek from Belgrade, especially if the weather is bad. The first hour or so of the roughly 5 hour journey is along the motorway but from there on, the roads deteriorate and the surface becomes uneven and pitted.  You’ll need to pack a set of snow chains for your car and you’ll need them for at least the final half hour of the journey up into the mountains. There’s no need, however, to get your hands dirty putting them on, as there are willing workers waiting in almost every lay-by to do it for you, for a few hundred dinars.

Your first problem, on arrival, could well be where to park your car.  Some hotels and apartments will reserve you a place – try to insist on this when you book.  Otherwise you’ll have to squeeze into the public parking spaces which are inadequate and chaotic.

Accommodation at Kopaonik includes vikendica (cottages to let) along with more traditional self-catering apartments and a range of hotels.  Don’t, however, expect to be able to turn up and book.  The
resort is always busy and often fully booked.  Almost every travel agency in Belgrade will be able to book on your behalf, or of course you can also check the options online (kopaonik.net or eng.infokop.net are both good sources).  Don’t expect to get a bargain; a week’s accommodation for a family of four in Zermatt, Switzerland, with a view of the Matterhorn can be had for as little as €400, but expect to pay at least another €100 for a vikendica in Kopaonik. The best hotel in town, the 4-star Grand, charges around 5,000 dinars per person per night for a double room, depending on your travel dates.

Unless you possess silver-tongued charm or have money to waste, don’t even think about trying to book a weekend’s skiing.  Nobody, it seems, will sell you a hotel room, a self-catering apartment or a vikendica for less than a week.  I’ve tried to reason.  I’ve begged.  I’ve shouted.  But it seems that the local hoteliers would rather hope against hope that someone will take a week’s booking rather than take even a last minute booking for a weekend.

The British, it seems, are here in force.  Yugoslavia once rivaled Spain as a package destination for British holidaymakers and after its break-up, the British have been amongst the first to return.  Most of the big UK tour operators offer ski packages to Kopaonik, and their bulk buying means that they can offer prices under £500 (€520) for a week in the Grand Hotel, including flights and transfers, so you’re as likely to hear a Birmingham accent as you are a Belgrade accent on the slopes.
Kopaonik is a great place to learn.  Although the 60km of ski tracks do include one two more challenging pistes, the majority of the resort is easy skiing – perfect for beginners and families.  The two official ski schools are professional, good value and English-speaking.  There are also a number of qualified guides available to provide private lessons.  Instructors and their students get priority on the lifts too!

At 8,500 dinars ski passes are cheap by international standards and about on a par with resorts in neighboring Bulgaria.  There are 10 chair lifts and 13 drags and the infrastructure seems to be in good condition.  Pistes are well marked but safety standards are not always at the highest levels.  Support pillars for chairlifts are not always padded where they cross a piste, and one or two outcrops could be better protected. The pistes are wide, well maintained and by the standards of many European or US destinations very quiet, even at weekends.  Lift queues are not unknown, but not particularly long either.  The pistes are dotted with good value bars and cafes.  Check out the small, rustic cafe at the top of the “Karaman” lift for great cevapcici cooked over the open fire.

Nightlife is a little muted by the standards of some of the big European destinations and this is definitely not a place to come to if après ski is a priority.  There are some good bars and there are restaurants aplenty, but this is not Verbier.

Once you get over being stung for your accommodation, you could quite come to like Kopaonik.  It has a provincial charm, but has also almost all of the facilities that you’d expect from some of the biggest resorts across the world, with none of the pretensions.