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Visit Vienna during ball season, and be swept away in one of Europe's most refined and romantic cities.

As I drank an einspanner, a glass of whipped-cream-smothered coffee, in a cozy 125-year-old

café, I realized that I was thousands of miles away—literally and figuratively—from the Starbucks in my hometown of Los Angeles. In front of me sat a slice of sachertorte, the signature apricot-jam-filled chocolate cake of Vienna, Austria. It looked rich and sweet, but I was too nervous to eat more than a few bites: The next day, I would be attending my very first ball.

Yes, it's true: Balls are not just the stuff of fairy tales. Vienna's annual ball season runs from New Year's Eve until the start of Lent. During this period, the former capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire hosts more than 200 major balls at its many palaces. Professional groups, ranging from physicians to florists, organize most of these sumptuous parties, but anyone can attend. (Empress Maria Theresa initiated the balls in the 18th century to keep members of the aristocracy from socializing with commoners; her son, Joseph II, later opened them to the public.) The most famous soirée of the season, the internationally renowned Opera Ball, is frequently attended by royalty such as Great Britain's Prince Philip, Spain's King Juan Carlos, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. This year, my husband, Paul, and I would be there, too.

The Princess Diaries

Since I have no fairy godmother, I made all of the necessary arrangements for our attendance at the ball myself, starting almost six months before the trip. First up: formal dress. Fortunately, I had a floor-length white jersey gown that I had worn to a wedding a few months before; I picked out some of my nicest pieces of jewelry to complement it. While Paul owns a tux, it lacks tails, which are mandatory attire for the Opera Ball's male guests. We didn't want to be turned away at the door, so we prebooked a rental on-line several months before our trip.

We also signed up for waltz lessons at a famous Viennese dance school, and reserved a room at the stately Hotel Imperial. Built in 1867 as a private palace, its decadent down comforters and sparkly chandeliers dovetailed perfectly with our fairy-tale fantasy. Most important, the Imperial is within walking distance of the State Opera House, where the Opera Ball is held each year, which meant that we wouldn't have to struggle to find a taxi to or from the dance.

Light on Our Feet

After we landed in Vienna and checked into our hotel, we ran off to the first in our three-day series of waltz lessons. The school we chose is housed in a stone building sheathed in the shadows of the massive Hofburg, formerly the imperial winter palace.

Like so much of Vienna, the Tanzschule Willy Elmayer Vestenbrugg rests on a solid bed of tradition. Begun in 1919, it remains the most widely respected dance school in the city, and is run by the original Elmayer's great-grandson. As many as 3,000 Viennese teens climb the studio's narrow, creaky stairs each week to learn how to execute an impeccable waltz. Mastering this and other ballroom dances is considered a rite of passage for young Viennese; becoming an expert dancer takes nearly two years on average.

But, the school's owner had assured us on the phone, those with humbler goals can learn a decent waltz by taking a nine-hour crash course spread over three days. We walked through the building's cramped vestibule and were met by Herr Elmayer himself, a tall, thin man, who faintly clicked his heels and kissed the air above my fingertips: I was charmed. During the lessons, my husband and I laughed a lot, mostly at ourselves. Between classes we managed to fit in visits to Vienna's most popular sites, including the nearby Hofburg and the Museum of Fine Arts. By the end of the last session, true to Herr Elmayer's word, we had learned a reasonably passable waltz. It was a good thing, too, because we were off to the ball that very evening.

A Night to Remember

After a fortifying cup of coffee, a light dinner and a respectable amount of primping, we arrived at the neo-classical Opera House and saw that police had barricaded the streets and cleared traffic for the 5,000 or so fortunate ticketholders, who began to filter in at 9 p.m. Inside, Paul and I were awed: Shimmering crystal chandeliers cast a gentle glow, and bejeweled women with chic, coiffed hair and long gloves chatted amiably with gallantly clad men sporting clusters of medals and dashing red sashes.

At 10 p.m., following the ceremonial entrance of Austria's president, more than 150 young couples from the country's top dance schools streamed onto the parquet floor to perform in the ball's time-honored opening procession.

The tiara-crowned women, dressed in flowing white gowns and creamy-white shoulder-length gloves, carried bouquets of salmon-pink roses cupped in lace holders. As they entered, they turned and curtsied to their white-gloved partners who, dressed in fitted black tailcoats and white bow ties, certainly looked like my image of Prince Charming. Violins began to play, and the freshfaced couples waltzed round and round, like tiny music-box figurines, to Carl Michael Ziehrer's lighthearted "Fächer Polonaise." When the music finished, the couples formed two lines down the length of the ballroom through which the Vienna State Opera corps de ballet would dance. After the performance, a dance master struck the floor with his baton to start the festivities. Immediately, ball guests young and old eagerly flooded the floor to waltz to Emmerich Kalman's famous "Tanzen Mocht' Ich" ("I'm in the Mood for Dancing").

And they certainly were. To our surprise, waltzes, sambas, foxtrots and rumbas mingled with songs like "New York, New York" throughout the night, as two orchestras alternated between classical waltzes and more modern tunes. Summoning our courage, my husband and I slipped onto the floor to do the dance we had spent the last few days studying. What looks easy from afar proved nearly impossible for us: Caught among the swiftly surging couples around us, and struggling to keep the quick tempo, we felt trapped in a game of human bumper cars. While the other couples seemed to be swirling in concentric circles, we kept getting in the way. Fortunately, the orchestra's next song was a ballad, Anita Baker's "Sweet Love." As Paul gathered me in his arms for the slow dance, he became the handsomest prince at the Opera Ball, and we swayed around the room with the best of them.

Later, we decided to explore the rest of the opera house, and found that every inch had been transformed for the evening's festivities: The building's smaller, yet equally grand, rooms housed a casino, a buffet dinner, a champagne bar, and four dance bands, playing everything from swing to hard rock. As the night wore on, some of the guests wore out, so my husband and I returned to the main ballroom to glide about on its burnished floor in relative safety until the wee hours of the morning.

There's no denying that we didn't learn to dance the waltz as well as the Viennese do. But, like Cinderella, I was proud to have made it to the ball. Every now and then, Paul waltzes me around our apartment. During these moments, the stately architecture of Vienna and the taste of the city's sinful sweets come flooding back to me. And, most of the time, we live happily ever after.