The day after the hike I couldn't move further than the room beyond the bedroom and so opted to read an Agatha Christie mystery I found in the hotel library. Graeme and Amber decided to walk 3km to the cable car to view the town from the top of the mountain. They returned much later to report the cable car had been closed for Christmas Eve and so they had walked back into town and gone in to confirm our Christmas dinner reservation and did some other odds and ends that needed doing. Amber worked out that another 12km had been covered in that walkabout and so I felt quite relieved that I had stuck to my guns with regard to reading a book instead. We spent a quiet evening at home eating pasta and sauce for dinner.

Christmas morning dawned and the only gift presented was ours to Amber. We savoured the anticipation of our Christmas dinner which was the children's gift to us. We stayed home for the morning and lolled about doing lazy things. Later we showered and while I was drying my hair a thought occurred to me about Christmas celebrations in Europe taking place on Christmas Eve and asked whether they were certain the dinner was for Christmas day. I was assured in no uncertain terms that I was being ridiculous. We took a slow walk towards town, stopped in at the lake view place for a coffee and then continued into town and walked the streets marvelling at the apparent lack of Christmas spirit and the fact that it was pretty much business as Usual for most stores.

Eventually the time came for us to hit the restaurant. It didn't look as festive as we had imagined it would look, but entered with high hopes anyway. May I say LOL?????!!!!! Christmas dinner had been the previous night!!!!!!!!! The manager very kindly accommodated us by offering to let us eat anyway and settle the score afterwards. We did not hold back and had a really wonderful meal together. We even had the manager serving our table himself treating us as VIPs. An elderly gentleman entertained us with his piano accordion playing sultry tangos as well as more upbeat melodies. All in all it was a really lovely evening and for half the price, as well as an open menu. So the mishap turned all to our advantage. The following morning we walked again to the cable car and at last made our way up the mountain to stunning views of the surrounding scenery. We had coffee in the revolving restaurant and then made our way down again. A further walk to a roadside restaurant for lunch and then a bit of grocery shopping and then home to pack for our departure the following morning.