Is Slovakia skiings new frontier?
My memories of my last snowboarding trip to Eastern Europe, back in 2002, are not entirely good. In Zakopane, Poland, we queued for hours for the lifts, and ended up hating the place. In the Czech Republic, we discovered that “nightclubs” are not the same as “discos” and tend to be frequented by lonely truckers instead of dancers. In Slovakia, we were surprised, and impressed, with the quality of the mountains – even if we didn’t have a hope of actually pronouncing the resorts (Strbske Pleso? Liptovsky Mikulas?) – but we despairingly wondered if they would ever put good lifts on them. The good news is that, in the six years since then, it seems they’ve been doing little else. In fact investment is pouring in, and infrastructure is being developed at such a rate that tour operators, hoteliers and the rest of the ski industry are excitedly talking about Slovakia as next season’s hot new destination. It’s cheap (which everyone knows will be vital next winter), there are budget flights (Sk
My memories of my last snowboarding trip to Eastern Europe, back in 2002, are not entirely good. In Zakopane, Poland, we queued for hours for the lifts, and ended up hating the place. In the Czech Republic, we discovered that “nightclubs” are not the same as “discos” and tend to be frequented by lonely truckers instead of dancers. In Slovakia, we were surprised, and impressed, with the quality of the mountains – even if we didn’t have a hope of actually pronouncing the resorts (Strbske Pleso? Liptovsky Mikulas?) – but we despairingly wondered if they would ever put good lifts on them. The good news is that, in the six years since then, it seems they’ve been doing little else. In fact investment is pouring in, and infrastructure is being developed at such a rate that tour operators, hoteliers and the rest of the ski industry are excitedly talking about Slovakia as next season’s hot new destination. It’s cheap (which everyone knows will be vital next winter), there are budget flights (Sk
