New Year in Munich or Salzburg

If it is your first time to both, I would definitely go to Munich...it is much much bigger, which means more to see and do during the New Year break. Much more choice. Plus you have a great Underground there for getting around. Munich is about 2.5 million people vs about 150k in Salzburg. Salzburg is great in summer, but kind of provincial for a big winter holiday. Rouss

Definitely stay in Munich, the MandarinOriental hotel has the best location in downtown. The Mercure also has a reasonably priced 4 star hotel inside downtown. option is to stay close to the train station which has some less desirable stores and not as clean. Le meridien is a nice hotel with reasonable prices.
You may consider new year's eve dinner and celebration at the Ratskeller below the famous clock tower at the Marienplatz.

A different view. In 2003 Gayot included Salzburg among its top 10 New Year destinations. I think we went in 2005 and were not disappointed. We had dinner in a lovely restaurant--Blau Gans, and then took to the streets to watch one of the best fireworks shows I've ever seen. Not only was there plenty to watch in the air, but the locals were going crazy with their own displays on the ground level, so much so that we fairly danced through the stuff popping off. Dancing was also the order of the evening as the locals and tourists took to dancing in the streets to the sounds of Strauss waltzes. There were tents set up at several places, snow bars, pictures projected on building walls, and a steady flow of bubbly and beer--and great kiosks selling pretzels and best of all sandwiches of dried beef and raclette. We had our young 30 somethings with us and everyone loved the festivities.

Gayot thought Salzburg right up there with NYC and Sydney. They never mentioned Munich.

I vote for Salzburg.

I am hoping more people will post... I making the same decision except for earlier in December for the markets...

gruezi

Munich is bigger and has a lot to do besides the usual tourist scenes. Salzburg is smaller. For New Years I would go big.

Either place is magic. Noting date of your post you may already be there. While you are in Salzburg be sure to have dinner at Sankt Peter's Shriftskeller. It has been there about 900 years (literally). They have two menus, one upstairs that is a little more spendy than the one in the celler. We liked the celler for the atmosphere. Upstairs they do a lot of Mozart concerts.