New Year’s Eve is known as Silvester in Austria. It’s the Roman Catholic feast day of the pope and saint with the same name who died on December 31st, AD 335. At 2pm on December 31, Vienna’s Old City center transforms into a giant party zone with 750,000 visitors from all over the world (close to the 1 million that pack Times Square in NYC). Along the Wien Silvesterpfad (“New Year’s Eve Trail“) you can find generous servings of punch and other treats while being entertained with shows, waltzes, operettas and hit music. Make sure to visit the classical area on Graben where Vienna’s dance schools offer crash waltz dancing courses and transform the area into an idyllic open air ballroom. A large firework display will be held on City Hall Square and in the Prater at midnight. On New Year’s Day, Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert will be broadcast on a big screen in front of City Hall at 11 am and again at 2 pm.