Soll, an ancient mountain town at the foot of a beautiful valley, is part of a string of mountain villages which serve the colossal Ski Welt, the largest ski area in Austria. A great resort with well-maintained pistes, friendly people and picturesque scenery.

Heading down the valley just an hour from Salzburg you pass the ski villages of Going, Ellmau and Sheffau before reaching Soll, the most idyllic of them all with its famous yellow-walled church of St Peter and St Paul. The resort is a bustling, incredibly clean and well-organised town which provides a wonderful afternoon for some shopping and a lively apres-ski spot every night. With a range of bars both on the piste and in the town, the bars of Soll are also particularly friendly to the skier or boarder who wants to do a bit of midday servicing while drinking a beer.

Accommodation consists mostly of the traditional family-run Austrian ski hotel where guests are known to staff as individuals. The balance of quality and price is excellent in a range of hotels from 2 star to 4 star. Prices around Soll, like most Austrian resorts, are very reasonable for food, drink and shopkeeper’s wares.

From Soll you have access to 279km of pistes in the Ski Welt Wilder Kaiser-Brixental, the largest ski area in Austria. The area boasts the most extensive amount of snow-making in the Austria Alps and offers a fantastic range of pistes to suit all abilities.

Within Soll itself, there are bunny slopes for complete beginners and easy-going blues. A couple of gondola rides take you to the peak of Hohe Salve at 1829m where there are some wide red runs perfect for speed and carving and challenging blacks and powdery off-piste areas for more advanced skiers and boarders. There are some beautiful off-piste areas adjacent to the pistes which you can hop on and off at your leisure or take through the trees.

Navigating the pistes can be a little tricky with their many crossing paths but the lift system is fantastic and the pistes are very well signposted. The area is dotted with a number of fun parks and there are two toboggan runs, plus a few night skiing pistes on Soll’s slopes.

From the peak of Hohe Salve you can ski or snowboard down to the towns of Itter, Hopfgarten, Westerndorf and Brixen im Thale. Going, Ellmau & Scheffau are reachable by passing through the main stations of Hochbrixen (1300m), Zinsberg (1674m), Eibger (1673m), Brandstadl (1650m) and Hartkaiser (1555m). Soll caters for all levels of skiing and, with access to so many other resorts and villages, has everything you need for a perfect winter holiday.