Czech Republic

When you border a country that has the best of the Alps in its backyard (Austria), you might think you'd have a hard time persuading skiing's elite to come and spend time in your mountains - especially when yours are only half the height.

The Czech Republic has Prague however - one of the coolest cities in Europe. And persuading people to come to Prague is ... well, hardly marketing's great unanswered problem.

With a number of ski resorts within easy reach of the city, tacking a little visit to the snow on to the end of a city break is palpably doable, any time between late December and March.

The best skiing or snowboarding in the Czech Republic can be found in the Krkonoše area near the Czech Polish border, about an hour and a half north of Prague. There are a number of different ski resorts here, as well as the country's highest mountain Snežka, which peaks at 1,600 metres (5,249 feet).

Špindleruv Mlýn is probably the most well known ski resort in the Krkonoše and can suffer from overcrowding as a result. But if you're used to the infrastructure of bigger international resorts and like having everything on tap - shops, restaurants and hotels - you might forgive the few extra minutes spent in the lift queue.

If you're looking to learn, the ski resorts of Špicák and Kašperské Hory in the Šumava Mountains on the German Austria border are ideal for beginners. The slopes are more forgiving and most of the ski schools in the Czech Republic are based here. Best of all, the resorts are still accessible from Prague.

If you'd rather not spend your day dodging beginners on the slopes or having your new kit scratched in the queues, you'll need to get away from the city and head for somewhere like Jeseniky. Four hours from Prague, there are still a lot of resorts to chose from, but because it's such a huge ski area, the ratio of you-to-probable-incident is stacked more in your favour. Better still, the mountains are comparable in stature to Krkonoše and the area often gets quite decent powder.

Cost

Skiing or snowboarding in the Czech Republic is no longer as cheap as it used to be, especially in light of competition from countries like Bulgaria. In fact you can expect prices at Špindleruv Mlýn to be comparable to those next door in Austria. A one-day adult lift pass here costs around US$45.

Getting here

You'll find reasonably-priced flights to Prague from most major European cities.