Tomorrow we’re touring Nuremburg pretty early (read: 9 a.m.; I am on vacation after all), and I want to sleep a lot, so I’m going to keep this post short.

We went shopping down in Ansbach today. The shopping district was beautiful, I thought. The narrow-ish cobblestone streets probably don’t seem terribly romantic to the people who work there every day. However, I’m starting to recognize that good-looking architecture makes me really happy. See below.

This was the sight that greeted us once we stepped away from the parking lot. I’m tempted to vote that Woodland mall adds some stone walls and turrets to its design, although I’m not sure how good they’d look with the rest of the buildings ….

There weren’t too many people when we got there, but this is the most open, square-like part. The shops were mostly on the right-hand side. We stopped in a music store and tapped a few djembe and struck a few glockenspiel. Also checked out the H&M and found this fantastic navy blue pea coat with belt and many pockets and random details for Steve. He didn’t buy it, but I suspect we will be returning to make the acquisition.

This church was also right by the square. To the left and behind, if you’re looking at the first picture.

The interior. Grace told me there were many churches like this (only bigger) in Nuremburg, but I was already feeling awed. I wondered the not-so-original thought that maybe modern churches could use a little more beauty.

One of the streets in the shopping district. We poked our heads in toy shops and antique stores before having some ice cream.

Another random shot.

After dinner, we headed out to Bad Windsheim to check out the Franken-Therme (geothermal salt spas). It was a fantastic two and a half hours.  There were five pools, and as you moved away from the lockers they got increasingly salty. Most of them had places in the pools where you could sit or lie down and get massaged by water jets. My favorite, however, was the second-most salty pool, which was indoor (dim) and the warmest. Soft music played in the background, orange light globes hung from the ceiling, and a pink/purple light shown from the center of the bottom of the pool. The water was salty enough that you could relax completely and you would just float above the water. Dad referred to it as the “womb room.”

They had an even saltier one outside. The wooden steps leading down to the water were partly crusted in salt, as were the rocks around the edge of the pool. You could stand and feel the rocks between your toes, but it was much easier to just float on your belly or back and paddle about lazily.

I thought vaguely about the possibly of treating our pool back home with salt instead of chlorine.