Carinthia

The southernmost Austrian region of Carinthia has some large and exciting ski areas. The biggest of which is Nassfeld, down on the Italian border -presenting two-country skiing. Nassfeld has grown to double its former size in the past 20 years and now has a large tourist area in the valley town of Hermagor, and highspeed lifts to the mountain-top.

There’s a strong local following, and being on the border of Italy and Slovenia this gets a good deal of tricountry business too . From the valley floor a gondola takes you to the mountain-top where doorstep skiers will love the tiny hamlet that has been built up around quality hotels such as the Wulfenia. From here skiers start at the very top and have on offer 112km of well-kept trails to explore and 90% of them are easypeasy, so this is a wonderful region for fun ad family skiers. Some of the runs are long and varied, in particular the 7.5km Carnia which has a mountain-top to valley drop of more than 1200metres.

The valley  oor is a hive of activity too with one of the country’s largest ski touring and cross-country ski areas. Getting there is a lot easier than it looks – with direct flights Stansted to Klagenfurt then an hour to Nassfeld, or BA or easyJet to Llubjiania in neighbouring Slovenia, and then a 90-minute transfer.