Re-living the dream after prolonged global mayhem!

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When disaster strikes, the overall impetus seems to be to turn fortunes around through whatever means. Well, nobody really saw the state of the globe hitting such a bad patch, and remaining on red alert for so prolonged a period, but as any traveller will tell you, it pays to prepare for every eventuality, and then some. So, a 23 month-long period of absence was never in the original script, but in reality, that’s what it really amounted to when trying to pick up the thread once again and get back out onto the road. Being the right kind of season, a ski trip to Kopaonik, Serbia appeared on the radar, and that is precisely what took shape when a booking was made for a period of 8 days, which would see the New Year in as part of the proceedings. Getting to Kopaonik seemed to be part of the challenge, given that it is located a few hours drive south of Belgrade, the airport of which was to be the first port of call. Rental car picked up, and just like it was only yesterday, the travel baton was yet again firmly within my grasp, with further determination to allow the nature of the experience to make me realize what the preceding period had sorely lacked. The passage of freedom was somehow blighted by a minor incident en route involving a rock tumbling from the hillside and smashing into the car, but maybe this was a wake-up call to the fact that there are all kinds of plots and sub-plots in the realm of overseas travel, not all of which are in the original script. None of this served to blight ski day number 1, and the mild fog with light sleet didn’t serve to throw a blanket over what could be best described as a glorious return to the fold, the emotions generated by which were in the process of making it all feel worth the wait. On ski day two, for instance, weather conditions were terrific, and the whole atmosphere and aura surrounding the skiing came into its own, as if to suggest that the global pandemic had been every bit the joyless raging beast which we suspected all throughout the doomed period. As ski resorts go, Kopaonik may not provide challenging ski terrain for the truly advanced skier, but in the case of a leisure skier (me!), it came across as a well above par resort, decked out with enough in the way of likeable facilities and amenities to make it well worth the asking price. The choice of hotel, Villa Kostic Kopaonik might not have been slopeside, but with use of a rental car, and other shuttle options, staying at a homely place a couple of miles out did not really seem to be too much of a drawback. The choice of restaurants, both slopeside and in the town, seemed to be part of the resort’s appeal, and the shops and accommodation options also suggested that Serbia’s main ski resort didn’t compromise too much when it came to providing a welcome range of options. Not wanting to or needing to escape the local area in search of what else constituted the rest of the region was probably your best indication that Kopaonik had sufficient appeal for a week on the slopes, and the final day’s experience at the foot-of-the-slopes purpose-built bob run was a short blast of hedonism which summarized the rush of emotions experienced in the process of getting back into overseas travel after close to two years of hermetic living in uncertain circumstances. From here, it was a few hours drive north to the nation’s second city of Novi Sad, and lack of drama en route, coupled with a change of scenery, and roads of different varieties along the way, all led to the prospect of one of the more memorable New Year’s experiences in recent times.

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