Last year, we spent New Year's Eve in Paris. We were disappointed by their so-called celebration at midnight, so we did a little research to find a happenin' spot to ring in 2012. The top two contenders were Edinburgh and Vienna. Since Edinburgh is further than an 8 hour drive, we would have had to take leave. Leave is entirely too precious, so we went with Vienna instead. And we were not disappointed. I started off the 4-day weekend with the worst allergy problems, so after Nathan drove us 7 hours to Vienna, I napped for a few hours in our little B&B outside Vienna. When I woke up and was feeling a little better, we ate a late dinner at an Italian place off the hauptstrasse in Vienna. We walked around afterwards. The city is gorgeous with all the buildings lit up at night. The next day, New Year's Eve, we took the train into Vienna that way we wouldn't have to pay for parking all day or worry about driving home after midnight.
Stephansdom
They had stages set up along the hauptstrasse for New Year's Eve concerts.
Hofburg Vienna
(the palace)
We went into the Imperial Apartments. They had room after room of royal dinnerware.
There were gifts from royalty of other countries.
These were from England. We immediately recognized them as English : )
model of Hofburg Vienna
Inside the Imperial Apartments was an exhibit of Queen Elisabeth.
her christening gown
her coronation gown
rooms in the Imperial Apartments
more of Hofburg Vienna
The Natural History Museum
We took a break outside of here in the afternoon.
hauptstrasse all lit up and with tons of people
Stephansdom
We ate dinner at the Italian restaurant again. The staff was nice, the food & wine was great, they had free WiFi, and they allowed us to sit there for a few hours. Trying to pass the time until midnight seemed daunting at first, but after a few hours at dinner, an hour walking up and down the hauptstrasse while listening to the music at each stage & watching people dance, and a few hours relaxing at Starbucks, we only had about an hour to kill before we wanted to head back into the crowds on the hauptstrasse. We found a little bar not too far away and drank a few glasses of Lambrusco. With our bill came a free glass of sekt and a little symbol of
good luck for the New Year - a little rubber pig!
After leaving the bar, we headed for the Stephansdom for the countdown to midnight. Along the way, we ran into groups of people shooting off fireworks. It made me nervous, and just as Nathan was telling me not to worry and that no firework was going to come after me, one shot up, then came at us and exploded right over our heads. There was lots of screaming and running.
Once we got to the main square where the Stephansdom is, we had a little gluhwein and then the countdown started. Fireworks went off and everyone was kissing and dancing in the street. A bona fide New Year's celebration! Making it back out of the square to find a taxi was insane. There were so many people. Nathan was pulling me through the crowd at some points and I was pushing people at other points. But we finally made it, grabbed a taxi, and were on our way back to our B&B outside Vienna.
The next morning, we decided to drive an hour east to Bratislava. We had already seen a good amount of Vienna and the day was extremely dreary anyway. We spent a few hours in Bratislava, which looks just how you would picture a Soviet block nation. It was obvious there had been a celebration in the street the night before, just like in Vienna, but the town was pretty deserted for the most part while we were there the following morning.
Before leaving, we drove up to the castle, which sits on top of a hill. We didn't go in, just drove around the complex. Nathan got out of the car, into the freezing rain, to take these pictures. They are a little blurry because of the raindrops.
the castle
