New Year’s Eve in Europe: Fireworks, Traditions and City Travel Tips

Celebrate New Year’s Eve in true European style! In this episode, we’re taking you on a festive journey through some of Europe’s most magical destinations for ringing in the new year. From watching fireworks over the Duomo in Florence to waltzing into midnight in Vienna and enjoying festive markets in Prague, we share our favorite celebrations and unique traditions.

Discover quirky customs like Spain’s 12 lucky grapes and Denmark’s midnight plate-smashing, and hear our personal stories of past New Year’s adventures—plus our wish list for future celebrations in Budapest, Edinburgh, and Copenhagen. Whether you’re planning your next trip or just love hearing about cultural traditions, this episode is packed with inspiration to make your New Year’s unforgettable. Read more here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome. I'm Lisa. And I'm Erin. And this is the Getaways Podcast. We get to talk about New Year's today. Hey, New Year's. New Year's all over Europe. Okay, wait, I don't think I've ever asked you this, but growing up, like, were you a fan of New Year's?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Um, no. It wasn't anything that was like big in our house. My parents would go to bed and I would usually stay up and just watch horror movies. But yeah, no, it wasn't a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Yeah, I've never been a huge big fan. And even like the um two uh what was it called? Y2K?

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Um, you went to a big party and I sat home and was uh pleased as can be to be in my pajamas watching television. Um but yeah, no, it's never been a big thing. I've never I've never had a good one until I moved to Europe.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

My first good one was the year before Y2K when I went to Amsterdam with my friends Sam and Andre, and it was crazy. I think that was my first like introduction to like really big New Year's. I was in my 20s, it was crazy. It was it was wild, and then the next year was Y2K and that was that was quite a party.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Alright, so speaking of wild, can we talk about together our very first New Year's in Europe? In Europe, yeah, when we lived, we lived in Florence and Nope, nope, nope, we lived in LA and we were on vacation in Cortona.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Oh yeah, we went to Cortona for for for New Year's for the in uh right after Christmas, and it was it was actually what inspired our move was just being there. But we went to Cortona and we had this great, like great house.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Enormous villa in the hills.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Right up hills from the city.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

It was it was like farmland up there. It was it was very close to the city, but it was very rural up there, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I mean, I saw hunters, like it was when when we do the Cortona episode, we'll go deeper into it, but it was it was it was crazy in its own self. So we went to Florence for the day to go to the Eufizi, and it's the first time I had ever been to Florence. You'd been to Florence before.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

And we got to the museum and we were there probably what 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah, because there was a line outside, so we were standing out waiting to get in, remember? And it started.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

But we were inside. I remember being inside and looking out the window on the staircase, and these huge flakes of snow started coming down. And I looked at Lisa, I was like, oh god, we gotta go. Because it's like an hour to Cortona, and we're from California, so we didn't snow driving in snow. I grew up in snow, but it had been many, many years. So we took off and got to Cortona about five o'clock.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, which was, you know, we're talking about in the end of December. So it was it was very, very close to pitch black, right? As we're driving up the hill to get to the villa above Cortona when we get stuck. Oh yeah, stuck in the snow. And so I get out and I was like, I can handle this. I'll put on the chains that are in the trunk. Yeah, couldn't do that. Some elderly Italian man stopped and tried to help us, and we put them on the wrong tires.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

And his wife was so mad that he stopped. So mad. We weren't the only one stuck on the road. True. Right here.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

True. Um, so we didn't know what to do. We didn't know anybody to call. We had, you know, no options. So we called the people, the guy who was the relative, like the He was the brother of the Airbnb host. So he came and got us, and he was like, okay, let's go, let's just set you up somewhere. So he drove us down into Cortona, and um, you know, we have we just had the shirts on our back, really. I mean, we didn't have any like overnight stuff because we weren't expecting to be coming into Cortona and we start, um, he starts taking us to all these hotels. Three.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

There's three in Cortona.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Every single one is booked like to the gills. Laughable. Yeah. Laughable that we were even asking. So then we're like, okay, well, what in the heck are we gonna do for tonight? And he goes, Well, I do have a friend that's out of town. He goes, so you could probably stay there. And we're like, okay, we're gonna squat in this guy's house overnight, but we literally had no other options. So we did. He opened the door for us. That we went to this little restaurant, or it wasn't even a restaurant, it was like a bar, right? Yeah, and made us a plate of food. That's great. And so we brought that back, and we sat in this stranger's living room and um had our own little version. And then at the strike of midnight, we went outside and just started like running around the streets, and everybody was out, and they were lighting fireworks and celebrating and in the squares, like just having this like big party, and it was just such a random introduction and not planned at all, but it was so like a glimpse of what New Year's is all across Europe, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

I mean, it was it was it was pretty magical. I mean, the whole thing was was amazing, like we couldn't have asked for a better New Year's, it was very stressful.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

It was stressful. I could have asked for a little less stress in my New Year's. But the house was lovely, Dylan got to have a nice bath, it was it was it was great. Um, but I think that that's one of the common themes of all the places that we've experienced in Europe for New Year's is fireworks, and they are everywhere. And you know, I grew up in LA where it's like drought central, right? Like you cannot set off your own fireworks, like that is a big, fat, huge, illegal no-no, and that is not the case here.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

I yeah, I grew up in Oklahoma where we did do our own fireworks, but only for the 4th of July. It was never a New Year's thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

And and not only is it common here, but it's it's everywhere. I mean every age, everybody in general has their own fireworks, setting off their own fireworks, in addition to like the big displays in the big cities like over the rivers and whatever, which are extraordinary, but it's not limited to the professional version. It is everybody on the street setting up and lighting fireworks. So our first true year of living in Europe, our New Year's Eve was in Florence, and we were in our apartment. I've gone to bed.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

I don't know if you guys went to bed.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Because that's what I do.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I think we were we may have gone to bed.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

But uh okay, so then we had Cash, who is the pit bull mix, and he got grumbly, and all of a sudden, like everything got so loud, and it was bananas, and so we ran to the window.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Our apartment was in the square that the duomo's in, and it overlooked the duomo, which was amazing and wasn't amazing at the same time. So, but that's where everything happens in New Year's in Florence. So, but we weren't anytime in Florence, really.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

We weren't prepared. We were not prepared. So you have to tell more of the story than me because I was trying to prevent a pibble from jumping out the window to add all the racket, remember?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, we just started hearing racket downstairs and like fireworks, and like I said, we had just moved to Florence. We had been there maybe four months, and so fireworks was still something that was quite shocking to us. And so Dylan and I jumped up, he was nine at the time, and we jumped up and ran into the living room, and the square was packed with people, and they were like had circles around big fire homemade, not homemade, but like bonfires, bon bonfires, and and people had like big firework displays that they did themselves, and it was crazy, and like people it looked like the end of the days because people like had mow bikes, the bike rentals, and they were throwing them in the fires, and it went on forever. So Dylan and I opened the windows, and all of a sudden our pit bull starts charging the window and tries to jump out the window. We're on the fourth floor, and so that was crazy. So then Lisa spent the rest of the day night in her room holding him back, and we only like watched for like a half an hour, but it went on for hours.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah, yeah. No, and it was really like it when when you say throwing the bikes and stuff, but there was no like violence, there was no danger, it was just people being dumb and having fun. And that was the worst of the destruction was like one mo bike.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

I will say one thing that I would like to add that when we woke up the next morning, completely clean, didn't even have any idea.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

This is a total side note that has nothing to do with New Year's Eve, but Florence in general is one of the cleanest places. Like every morning when I would walk the dog, like at the crack of dawn, it was me and the cleaning guys out on the street, and they come with these like big, like vacuum-y things, and like they sanitize the whole city. It's it's bananas, but it's always clean. So that was our first experience with uh like living there and New Year's.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

And then the next year we moved to Torino, uh-huh, and and so the next year we went to, I think we went to Vienna, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

That was the next year, I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, we wanted to do a big like hotel party. Dylan was 11. Okay, so he was 10 in Florence. He was 11. He was really into like social things, and so we wanted to do like a big New Year's event, and that I think was well, I've had two favorites, but Vienna was definitely number one or two of my favorite New Year's.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

But we stayed at what was the name of that hotel?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

The writing school, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

It was a Marriott. Yeah, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

It was it was a nice hotel.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

It was a nice hotel. They did a fantastic buffet for dinner that was like fancy, you know, you could like get dressed up and go downstairs and have like a nice meal. And then there was a DJ and dancing all night, and like and there was a party for adults upstairs in a ballroom, but in it was in the lobby, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

The DJ and dancing was for families, basically.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Right. Um, and so we had the best time. Like Dylan and I danced for hours and hours and hours, and it was really, really fun. And then right at New Year's, now Cash, the pitbull, was upstairs in our room while we went downstairs to have dinner. So we went up to be with him during the fireworks, and again, I'm holding him, trying to like keep him calm. So you guys saw the fireworks. But the market, the Christmas market was still going too. So that was like, I mean, the whole day was just really special and New Year's Day. Vienna is magical in that time. And the, you know, again, it's the fireworks, it was the the hotel experience was fantastic, and the first time that I had ever done anything like that, so it definitely left um, you know, changed my sort of vision of New Year's.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Like it was it was fun and it was a big celebration, it's an event, and and so that did make our trips different, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

For sure. And the next one was my other favorite.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, so we really loved the whole whole event aspect of uh of New Year's.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

So we drove to Prague the next year, and we say, what was that hotel?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

We stayed, it was a Hilton.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

It was a Hilton, yeah, okay, and again, just right outside of the city center. So the hotel was really interesting because it was sort of almost set up like with the rooms in the seating of what the arena, like if it was shaped like an arena, the the rooms were around the edge and the middle was kind of a big court, yeah, courtyard y with the restaurants and everything. But a glass ceiling, yeah. So it was it was cool, and they set up the biggest, coolest, funnest party ever. And the theme was The Greatest Showman. Yeah, and it was incredible. There were people, like performers everywhere. There was like three different stages. I mean, it was an amazing buffet.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

It it wasn't as fancy, no, no, it was it was very family friendly, it wasn't as fancy as Vienna, but it was fun, it was it was great.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, it was I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I did get a touch of the food poisoning, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, but but I did not, so I enjoyed myself. Um but yeah, I think that that was that was a really fantastic, and again, like the city was all as fancy as can be with all the lights, all the fireworks, all the I mean it's just we went ice skating the next day.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

It was it was it was very it was also very special.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Which which is gonna lead us to 2020 and 2021 New Year's, which was special in its own COVID way. We spent New Year's 2020 at our house and a family that was a friend of ours came over, snuck out of the house. I wasn't there a curfew that night, didn't they? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

People go out on the and you could only have one other family camp. They didn't sneak over. You were allowed to have one visitor, or one family visitor.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

So they came over and I I think they got to stay till like I think the curfew was 10 or something. So we had a a a really nice dinner.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah. So celebrating in Italy during COVID sort of led us to dig in a little bit to the customs and traditions of Italy at New Year's. And one of the things was food, which we actually had that night with our friends.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Which so lentils is a big thing because it it represents coins. Money, money, money. And there's a pork sausage that's called cotecchino, I think that's how you say it, that it's odd, but it was it was quite good.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

It was good, yeah. And that represents wealth and prosperity too. So those those two foods were sort of supposed to bring, you know, financial goodness in the next year. It didn't. We tried as much as we could, but it didn't quite work out that way.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

High cholesterol, but no extra money.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Um and then the other thing which we have um which we had read about and we, you know. We keep up. We try to try, is that you are supposed to gift red underwear to the people around you to bring good luck in love for the coming year.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

So it's every year, no matter where we are, it's a mad rush to try to find red underwear.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

It's again, we keep trying. We're we're we're waiting for we're waiting for the mother load to do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

I mean it's it's like all compiling up and it's just gonna hit all at once.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Um but we highly recommend uh you know giving giving those things a shot. But each country has their own like sort of specific, you know, special traditions like like that. So um so whenever we're in another country, we always sort of try and look and see what what the local things are, and maybe we can list some of those, some of our favorites on the website.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, that we'll definitely do that. So in 2021, we re-planned Budapest again. And then keep trying Budapest. Yeah, and then some like weird like pol was it political stuff. There was some weird stuff that it was happening in Budapest at the time where we didn't feel like it was the right time to go. So we decided we were gonna go to Florence for New Year's, stay in Italy. We loved Florence, so we booked this great house in Florence and uh leading up to right before Christmas, we went to Sestriere to the ski resort, and Dylan skied, and we had you know some s time in the snow and we got COVID. And some time indoors to catch coming. So we got COVID. So that New Year's was spent in Torino in our apartment with a single balloon, I think. Yeah, it was sit kid on the couch. It was not it was not that wasn't one of our better New Years.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

No, it was not. Um and then two years ago we were in the Cotswolds. We went to the UK, and that is just an incredibly charming, beautiful place to celebrate anything, but um, but the start of the year is is really lovely there and it's very cozy and we had sort of a weird dinner.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Um we went to a steakhouse that it turned out it's where call girls took took their customers, their high-paying customers, so it was it was a little weird. But it was good.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

It was okay. Um, but you know, it's hard. I mean, I guess that's one of the things that we can talk about later too. But like the takeaway is for New Year's in Europe, you need to plan.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

And we're not always good at that. So, you know, we probably would have done a little bit more research and fixed somewhere different if we had other options, but we were a little late in the game.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Like we already have three options planned for Florence this year.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah. So um, yeah, planning and and reserving well in advance is is key to many of these places.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

And then we just went back to the house. We had this really nice house on a park, and I think we were just like gonna just chill. Uh, our friend Katie and I were gonna watch game shows.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

I was in bed.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

The chills, Lisa in bed, and then um a bunch of fireworks started happening in the park, so we Katie and I went out there for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Um, but yeah, so lovely, charming. Definitely. Um, you know, we were out in the country, so it was a little more um mellow than some of our city trips, but um, but definitely cool and cozy and charming.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Last year?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Last year. Oh, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I'm gonna say this again. This is gonna be shocking for everybody, but Lisa was in bed early. I was sick to be very pneumonia. We went for the the Christmas markets because as our last podcast, the Christmas markets there are like just out of this world. So we went for that and we decided to do dinner at home. I we were just all tired. Lisa was really sick.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

I was really sick.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

So we got what did we get? We got cheese.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Oh, we got that huge cheese board.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I did we just do cheese? Yeah. So we got this really amazing cheese board in Strasbourg and some nothing better than French cheese. Some red wine and probably some champagne. Yeah, we got champagne.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, I did not drink any champagne.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, Lisa was very sick. So Dylan and I stayed out till midnight and we had sparklers and we went outside with the sparklers. There was not a lot of fire. There was a little in the distance, but not a lot of fireworks out in the country. Because this was out in the country in France too. So we were we like to stay out, which we're not doing this year.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah, so this year we're returning to Florence and we are we've already, like Aaron said, we've made three reservations for dinner. We just want to have like a really nice, fun dinner, and then you know, watch the fireworks. There are supposed to be some um events in Piazza Signoria and um and you know, maybe catch some fireworks. Again, we'll have Rex with us, so we need to be a little careful around making way better than our pit bull. He is with the fireworks, he is, but just you know, again, like if you're traveling and especially if you're traveling with your dog, something to be aware of that they the fireworks, because they're everywhere, like just make sure you're taking care of your dog or anyone that might be sensitive to that kind of sound because it's there's there's no getting away from it.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah. Um where are some places that we haven't been that you want to try to get to?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Well, you know, we just got back from Edinburgh and I are in Scotland, and I would imagine that they do a really, really nice New Year's Eve.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Oh, I'm sure. Um I definitely want to go there. I w I still want to get to Budapest.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

No, I know. And you know where I will always say I want to spend every holiday. Copenhagen. Yeah, I mean, I just like the cozy vibes and the water and the amusement park. I mean, it's all just sort of perfect for any sort of celebration.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

And I say I could totally do Vienna or Prague over again because they're just very special.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

For sure. And so you know, I know we talked about like the hotels and stuff and doing parties, but the the reality is is that as long as you figure out I mean, the the the core things that are like the events here in New Year's is a good dinner and the fireworks. I mean, if and being around people, you know, your family and friends and whatever. But I mean those are it's not like it's not a a holiday of extravagance, I feel like, here it's it's those elements put together. It's like just being outdoors and celebrating together.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Um so yes, planning is important, but also like you don't need to it doesn't need to be extraordinary because you can just go s walk out your door.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Extraordinary enough just being in the city and because being with the people.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

And because they decorate so well and and everybody's just enjoying themselves and happy and out, and it's it's really kind of cool. And and like I said, the the traditions like are different in every country, but those are the commonalities, and we'll we'll hit you with the specific traditions.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

But yeah, and up on the podcast this week we'll have all the different traditions in every country, because there's some strange ones, yeah, but they're they're all fun.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, and it's fun to learn about other countries and what the how they do because there wasn't um, you know, like I didn't grow up with a lot of traditions on the holiday, so it's nice to sort of see and experience that and what other countries do. Um, but yeah, we hope that New Year's Eve is great for you. And thanks for tuning in. We appreciate having you here. And check out our website, thegetaways.com.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

That's g-e-t-a-w a yz.com. And we will catch you next time. Thanks, guys. Bye.