☃️❄️🎄🎇Happy New Year!

2 Jan

Wow, what a ride 2023 has been!

As we farewell this remarkable year, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to each of you, our blog followers, for being intertwined with our travel journey stories.

Taking a career break at this point in our lives meant opting for discomfort, choosing courage over comfort and getting the admission ticket to a meaningful life! Dreams come true when we act upon them! Yay!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year from the City of Music🎼🎼🎼 🧡🧡🧡

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Wien, die Stadt der Musik

Vienna, the City of Music

After spending a few sunny yet winter weeks in Rovinj we left on the 23rd of December and drove to the magical Vienna. We had a pretty nice drive with a short snow storm along the way, just to test our nerves 😳. ( check out the video Driving into the snow storm)

When I look back to how this trip came about it all started with a dream to go to the famous New Years classical music concert in Vienna. Yes, that was the very first thing we planned, and this dream was not just my dream, it was my Mum’s never realised dream to take her daughter to this concert.

I still remember Mum telling me stories about her university days in Zagreb when she would sell her student food vouchers to buy tickets to opera performances. Mum would go to the theatre starving, but the joy of experiencing it live was more than worth the sacrifice.

I also remember Saturday mornings when Mum would sing along to popular operas while doing the household chores. The music was blasting and she was singing and dancing with a vacuum cleaner in her hands like no one was around.

To say Mum didn’t know how to sing would be an understatement, she used to get a chocolate to keep quiet when she was a young girl ( like her daughter ), but nevertheless the classical music was always on whenever she took charge of “my” gramophone.

I still have a lovely collection of Motzart, Strauss and Beethoven LPs kept in the apartment in Rovinj. Memorabilia at its best 🧡.

To top it up each and every year on the 1st of January at midday we would sit in front of the TV and watch the live broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performing the New Years repertoire of beautiful and well known classical music and waltzes.

This was a non negotiable event in my family, even my friends had to join in if they happened to be around. As a little kid I had to obey, as a teenager I rebelled having to get up that early after the New Year’s party, but no luck! We had to watch it together!

Over the years this event and more importantly the classic music grew on me and I fell in love with it. Mum and I would sit together dreaming how one day we would together attend this famous concert in the Golden Gala room in Vienna, in person.

For our Kiwi friends this event might not be a well know thing, but for the people in Europe it is a big deal!

It has long been a Philharmonic tradition at the New Year to present a program consisting of the lively and at the same time nostalgic music from the vast repertoire of the family of Johann Strauß and its contemporaries. The Vienna New Year's Concert, an annual tradition since 1939 originated as a way to uplift spirits during World War II. Conducted by renowned maestros, it blends Strauss family waltzes and polkas, captivating audiences worldwide with timeless elegance, symbolizing the start of the new year with elegance and musical splendor.

These concerts not only delight the audiences in the Musikverein in Vienna, but also enjoy great international popularity through the worldwide television broadcast, which now reaches over 90 countries.

There are three concerts each year, the content is exactly the same, we picked the evening one on the New Years Eve.

Neb and I got our acts together in January 2023 and after persistent attempts we managed to get the tickets for this year’s December concert. Yes, a year in advance! Getting these tickets felt like winning a lotto, with a small difference where we gave away lots of money instead of winning cash 😉.

And that’s how our trip planning started, we had to book the accommodation in Vienna a year in advance and the rest is history.

So here we are, on a day after the concert, as I type this blog. I didn’t sleep the night before out of the excitement, and planning in my head what to wear to the concert, what music will they play, where to go to a dinner before the concert, and how to be nicely dressed in accordance with the dress code, and to feel warm later on when we join the big town party to welcome 2024!

Vienna New Year’s Eve Trail is one of the largest New Year’s Eve celebrations in Europe!

One thing I knew for sure, I would wear my Mum’s special brooch on my coat, and for me my dear Mum is coming along 🧡.

I can hear you asking, OK Draženka, so how was it?

We arrived an hour early to have the time to enjoy this beautiful evening in the most gorgeous place of all.

We dressed nicely and were at par with the audience. We had great seats, worth every penny.

As we entered, I was completely overwhelmed with the beauty of the architecture and the atmosphere, the flower arrangements, and the place itself. I don’t have enough adjectives in my English vocabulary to describe it. Everyone looked amazed, pretty, handsome, happy and smiling. I had to work hard to control my emotions, for the first time since we left NZ I wore makeup, there was no crying allowed!

Recording was not allowed, but naughty Neb took a couple of short videos for our own memory 🧡. Check out the videos ( Vienna Concert 1, Vienna Concert 2 )

This year conductor Christian Thielemann directed the performance of the orchestra that in itself was an amazing showcase of his genius talents. I loved his demeanor, joyful facial expressions and love for music we could sense in each and every gesture he made on the stage.

We absolutely loved every minute, 2.5 hours flew by, and left us feeling speechless, special, grateful and proud of our decision to do something so special for ourselves. These decisions are big calls, yet we seem to have the courage to award ourselves with things we both love and enjoy, isn’t that so cool?!

After the concert we walked down to the City Centre and joined the party! OMG, there were hundreds of people walking around, dancing to waltz, numerous stages with music performances, the city’s decorations were so pretty, mulled wine and punch served on every corner, restaurants filled with tourists, lines everywhere, you wouldn’t believe it!

We welcomed the New Year dancing a waltz to the music of The Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866! Special, so special, celebration of the New Year, farewelling 2023 with a smile and welcoming 2024 with the joy and gratitude. Check out the videos (Street New Year Party 1, Street New Year Party 2, Street New Year Party 3)

The next morning I got up, took the phone to check the photos and videos and cried silently out of inner joy, happiness, gratefulness, I let my emotions out…

Later on, I woke up Neb and we had a lovely New Years breakfast together in our little apartment in the middle of this magical City of Music. 🎵 🎼🎶

If you ever have the chance to see this concert live let us know, we are happy to share the tickets buying experience to help you out.

So, that’s just one blog for one event on one night in Vienna!

We did a lot of other cool things during our stay in Vienna, stay tuned for more, and enjoy the photos and videos for now 🎉

The Vienna New Year's Concert Photo Album