Kopaonik Ski Resort - An Affordable and Fun Winter Holiday Experience

Hello friends. We recently visited Kopaonik, the largest ski resort in Serbia. As the second-largest ski resort in the Balkans, this area stands out with its nearly 2000-meter-high peaks and 60 km of slopes. However, out of 27 ski lifts, only 18 are operational.

We stayed in a small village, 17 km away from Kopaonik Ski resort. Accommodation here is much cheaper. And there is a daily environmental tax when entering Kopaonik, but no such tax in this village and parking is completely free. Six years ago, there were two old trains connecting this village to the ski center. There are plenty of hotels, apartments and guesthouses.

Nowadays prices are quite reasonable. We rented a fully equipped apartment in a guesthouse with a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. The apartment was really warm and cost around 45 euros per day, which also included parking and a pet-friendly stay. The bathroom was small, with a toilet and a combined shower area, meaning you have to dry the entire space after showering, just like in most guesthouses in Bulgaria and Serbia. However, the rest of the apartment had hot water, internet and all necessary amenities.

We purchased an online ski pass in the evening. You register, buy your ticket and then collect your ski pass using your QR code. The price was surprisingly affordable. We skied for the first two days and a 2-day ski pass cost 45. Later, we bought a 3-day pass for 40 euros per person. A 5-day pass costs around 31 euros, which is incredibly cheap.

As we moved towards the center, we noticed that you could buy tickets at the counters after waiting in a short queue or purchase them online for a slightly lower price. Then, you collect them from kiosks using a QR code. Near the main ski lifts, there are cabins and storage lockers, but no rental shops in that area. The rental stores are slightly downhill. A ski set costs 13 euros, while a snowboard set costs 18 euros. In the village below, there are even more rental options. Some hotels offer ski rentals at lower prices, with the cheapest ski set available for 10 euros per day and a snowboard set for 13 euros per day.

At the ski lift station, we took the gondola, which has three intermediate stops and runs parallel to three different slopes. The lowest stop has a blue slope, which is quite crowded. The second and third stations serve black slopes. The total ride time is about 12 minutes and the scenery from the gondola is breathtaking. There was very little snow this winter, but we were lucky to arrive right after a heavy snowfall. Before that, at least half of the slopes were closed, with only 70% of them operational.

The view from the top station is stunning and you can see the immense potential of the resort for freeriding. Off-piste skiing is well-developed, with only a few restricted areas. There were two days of fog and we experienced 40-50 cm of fresh snow. The ski resort can be roughly divided into three areas: Southern, Central and Northern ski zones.

Most ski lifts in Kopaonik are modern, with four- and six-seater chairs. Yesterday, we saw a T-bar lift break down and it took a long time to fix. Some slopes and lifts have free Wi-Fi, though it is quite slow. The navigation system is user-friendly. None of the ski lifts have individual names. Instead the slopes are numbered according to the lift numbers. For example, slope 19 corresponds to lift 19.

The resort's infrastructure is still weak. It is clearly insufficient for the number of visitors. While the slopes themselves are diverse and not overly crowded, the ski lifts have serious queues. Yesterday, we waited almost half an hour at one lift. There are several hotels near the ski lifts and the area is quite large. Prices for small double rooms start at 50 euros, with the most expensive one we saw costing 230 euros per night.

Several four-person chairlifts branch off from the main area. Most restaurants on the slopes do not accept card payments and only take cash. They accept Serbian dinars, euros or dollars, but the exchange rate is not very favorable. There are no public toilets. If you order something at a café, you can use their restroom, but if not, you have to pay a fee of 100 dinars (about 1 euros).

Kopaonik is the largest ski resort in Serbia and the second-largest in the Balkans. The slopes are not very long but are quite varied. However, the infrastructure is still lacking. I believe the resort will continue to grow and service quality will improve. One major drawback is the lack of public toilets.

I also had concerns about the amount of snow on the slopes. Normally snow is piled up and compacted for better skiing conditions, but here it seemed like the grooming operators were unsure of what to do. The resort was very crowded, even though school holidays had ended. Surprisingly on the first day of skiing, when student holidays were still ongoing the crowd felt smaller.

Reaching the northern ski zone requires overcoming several obstacles, making it especially fun for snowboarders. There are many transition areas. The northern zone consists of six or seven short slopes on the northern slope. T-bar lifts 11 and 12 and chairlift 13 serve this area. The slopes are not particularly special or long but are wide and mostly empty. At the bottom, there is a rest area and a familiar queue for the chairlift.

One of the biggest advantages of Kopaonik is the vast freeride area. In all officially permitted freeride zones, there are no restrictions, meaning you can ski off-piste freely, with only a few cliffs marked as dangerous. Another undeniable advantage is the pricing. The ski pass starts at 35 euros. If you buy a 4- or 5-day pass, it costs around 32-35 euros. A single-day pass is 45 euros.

I have never seen such an infrastructure, with so many lifts and diverse slopes, at these prices anywhere else. However, food and drinks on the slopes, such as tea and glögi are quite expensive by Serbian standards. Of course, the biggest downside of this resort is the long lift queues. The ski lifts are too slow and the infrastructure clearly does not match the number of visitors.

Hopefully we’ll visit another interesting ski resort this season. Thanks for reading. Wishing you all a great weekend. See you.

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