PARIS, Nov 14 — From Alpach, Ellmau and Hintertux Glacier to Innsbruck, Ischgl/Samnaun and Kitzbühel, with the Alps covering around two-thirds of its surface area, Austria is Europe’s top destination for ski vacations, according to outdoor sports specialists Ridestore Magazine’s top 100 ski resorts in Europe 2018/2019. A total of 17 Austrian resorts feature in the list.
Wondering where to go skiing in Europe this winter? According to the top 100 from Ridestore Magazine — compiled by a panel of experts including winter sports champions such as Ian Rocca, Florian Preuss and Angelica Sykes — Austria has enough to offer a ski resort to suit everyone’s preferences. Note that the top 100 compiled by the outdoor sports portal, which has its own online ski-clothing store, lists the resorts in alphabetic order, rather than ranking them from 1-100.
France follows closely with 16 resorts in the top 100, including Alpe d’Huez, Avoriaz, Chamonix-Mont Blanc, Courchevel, La Plagne, Serre Chevalier, Montgenèvre, Val d’Isère and Val Thorens, which was named the world’s best ski resort for the fourth time last year at the World Ski Awards.
Switzerland completes the top three with 13 resorts in the top 100, including the likes of Zermatt, Gstaad and St Moritz.
Italy has 11 resorts in the European top 100; Germany has seven; Sweden has six; Spain and Norway both have five; Finland, Slovenia, and Slovakia have four apiece; Bulgaria and Andorra have two; and there is one each for the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Iceland and Cyprus.
The full list of Ridestore Magazine’s top 100 list of best European Ski Resorts for the 2018/2019 season is available here.
With the winter season just around the corner, other selections and awards for Europe’s best resorts are on the agenda, such as Best Ski Resort 2019, for which voting is open until November 15 at: www.europeanbestdestinations.com.
Finally, a “Best Ski Resort” study, highlighted by Mountain Management France, identifies the best resorts based on skiers’ satisfaction rates. Among the 55 European candidates, the Italian resort of Krönplatz comes out on top, followed by the Swiss resort of Zermatt, then comes Austria’s Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis tied with Italy’s Val Gardena. A total of 45,847 people were polled for the study. — AFP-Relaxnews
