Hungary's capital sparkles(闪耀)in winter and it's a great place to see in the New Year. There's festive cheer on tap, with concerts, folk dancing and stalls selling wine or fruit brandy and traditional chimney cake outsides. New Year's Eve is celebrated with fireworks over the Danube(多瑙河), and it's worth booking one of the many river cruises(巡游)with dinner and DJs (free and open 24/7, but likely to be crowded).
A four-night trip with Travel Republic costs £449 for a family (2 adults with 1 child under 6), departing Stansted on 28 December with Ryanair, with B&B accommodation at the central Atrium Budapest Hotel.
For a slightly more cerebral(理智的)New Year's Eve, Stockholm is a smart choice. The main celebration is at Skansen, Sweden's oldest open-air museum. Enterainment starts at 8 p.m. with singing and dancing, and peaks with a recitation of the poem Ring Out. Evening tickets are £14 for adults (children under 6 go free), or there are new day and evening combination tickets (£16 adult/£5 child). On New Year's Day, early birds can try an introduction to ice skating (8 a.m. daily, £139).
Book it Ryanair, Norwegian and SAS fly to Stockholm from several UK airports.
The land of fire and ice lives up to its name on New Year's Eve, when about 90 bonfires(篝火)are lit across the country. Some bonfires are accompanied by Icelandic singing; most start about 8 p.m. and finish by 10 p.m., which can be a good time to see the northern lights. After the fires, everyone goes home to watch Áramótaskaup, a TV show that has been running on 31 December since 1966. But that doesn't mean the party is over just before midnight, they all come back out to let off an astonishing amount of fireworks, with profits going to Icelandic Search and Rescue Association, which does life-saving work, and is run by volunteers and is a cause close to most Icelanders' hearts.
Book it Wow Air and Wizz Air, easyJet and Icelandair fly to Reykjavik from several UK cities.
