Anything but gray and wet: winter is most beautiful in these 9 places in Europe

Winter is always a special season. Many people don't like it because it's too cold and too dark, but that's what makes it stand out from the rest of the year - and makes some areas of Europe even more beautiful than they already are. We'll show youwhich European places are particularly beautiful in winterand therefore make a visit worthwhile.

Make a belated New Year's resolution and travel to one of the places listed here this winter: you won't regret it!

The 750-inhabitant town of Hallstatt on Lake Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut is without question one of many beautiful places in Austria that exudes an incredibly fascinating atmosphere in winter - especially because of its idyllic location on the lake. But the imposing peaks of the Dachstein and the historic buildings also make Hallstatt appear truly magical. No wonder that the place, together with the Dachstein and the Inner Salzkammergut, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Malá Fatra National Park (or Little Fatra) is located in the northwest of Slovakia and extends over part of the high mountains of the same name - a wonderful place, especially in winter. You can go hiking there, for example to the 38 m high Šútovo waterfall or the Strečno and Starhrad castles, you can go skiing and be enchanted by the beauty of the gorges, gorges, flora and fauna. The highlight of the park is without a doubt the 1,610 meter high Veľký Rozsutec mountain, which is particularly beautiful in winter.

One of the most powerful is located about twenty kilometers northwest of the town of ÅreSweden: the Tännforsen waterfall with a width of sixty meters and a drop of 38 meters, in the middle of a wonderful nature reserve. The waterfall is impressive all year round, but certainly most impressive in winter. Just wow!

Of course, you don't necessarily have to travel to see beautiful winter landscapes; there are of course great places in Germany that will leave you speechless. One of them: the area around the Watzmann massif in the Berchtesgaden Alps. From the community of Maria Gern you can wonderfully hike and/or explore the area on skis - and of course take in the beautiful landscape.

The northernmost part of Finland is both the largest and most sparsely populated in the country - with fewer than two inhabitants per square kilometer. This fact also makes this landscape one of the most beautiful in winter. The term “winter wonderland” takes on a whole new meaning here. This also has to do with the fact that in winter there are the best conditions in the middle of the snow-covered forest landscapeto be able to admire. If that's not a reason to go there in winter, we don't know what is.

The Seiser Alm is the largest high mountain pasture in Europe and is located in the South Tyrolean Dolomites in Italy, about twenty kilometers northeast of Bolzano. The area has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009 and it is therefore beautiful there. Because from the Seiser Alm you have a fantastic panorama of the neighboring mountains: Sassolungo and Plattkofel, the Rosszahn and the Schlern with the famous Santnerspitze. The area also has 450 kilometers of hiking trails, sixty kilometers of slopes and eighty kilometers of cross-country ski trails. A beautiful place, even and especially in winter.

The Langwieser Viaduct, a single-lane railway bridge on the Rhaetian Railway near Langwies in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site - one of the most famous photo spots in the country. The famous Glacier Express also passes this bridge on its way from Zermatt to St. Moritz and offers fantastic views throughout.

The Norwegian Lofoten Islands are an absolute place of longing – and rightly so. And one of the reasons is that the chances of seeing the northern lights there are pretty good, especially in winter. Because the islands are very sparsely populated, the chances are very good because the so-called light pollution there is very low. But even from that point of view, the Lofoten Islands are incredibly beautiful - even (and especially) in the towns, in Reine for example. If you climb the Reinehaben mountain and look out over the community from there, you could almost melt - if it weren't so cold there.

The Aiguille du Midi is a type of summit terrace in the Mont Blanc massif south of Chamonix, the summit area of ​​which is accessible to tourism by a cable car. You then have to overcome a total of 2,700 meters in altitude (and then end up at 3,842 meters above sea level), from which you have an unreal view over the glaciers and the Swiss and Italian sides of the Mont Blanc massif. Clearly one of THE top sights on Mont-Blanc. And once you reach the top, you can also dine there – at Le 3842, the highest restaurant in Europe.