Ansbach, Germany

We've been travelling here and there over the weekends but hadn't checked out our own little town, so yesterday we decided to take a stroll down to Ansbach and look around a little bit.
 
I had my flight physical done that afternoon for Flight Surgeon school, part of which is dilating my pupils.  The bright light was killing me and I even had to wear sunglasses indoors for about 5 hours.  Luckily, Malisa had her drivers test earlier in the day (she aced it) and so she was able to drive downtown.
 
There's an old section of Ansbach, with the Markgrafliche residence, and some old Cathedrals.  Ansbach began its history in AD 748 with the foundation of a Benedictine Abbey by a man named Gumbert.  The Markgrafliche residence has been remodeled several times and is now a Baroque neo-Classical structure.  It now houses the museum of Faience and Porcelain.  There's also a more modern part of Ansbach which basically encircles the old part of the city and the population is around 40,000.
 
Here's the mall, it's called the Brucker Center.  There's a pedestrian bridge that leads across the main street through town and into the old section of Ansbach.

 

Collin suddenly wanted to ride on all these little kiddie rides.  Here's a Bob the Builder one outside the mall. 

We walked across the bridge and into the old part of town to look around and grab some dinner.  Collin found a little door...

And he found a sculpture

We got to the Town Square and there was a huge cathedral, statues, fountains and cobblestone streets.  There were cafe's on the streets, beer gardens and butcher shops, it was a nice surprise!

Collin had fun chasing the pigeons...he almost caught one.

Collin found another one of those little riding machines..and since it was a train, he had to ride on it.

 

More of Ansbach, this is next to the beer garden where we stopped to eat.  (and drink).  :)  I had a Hefenwiezen, Collin had apfelsaft and Malisa had a Greek white wine that was really good. 

Making cute faces in the Biergarden

Tough guys with dilated eyes.  :)

Collin was telling us how much he liked the German food and showing us how full his belly is. 

We stopped for ice cream and coffee afterwards and then headed back to the mall where we parked. 

You can see part of the residence behind this statue.

There's a lot of stuff that we haven't seen locally, and there's a lot of fests that happen here in Ansbach that we need to check out.  But...just thought I'd share our first impression of our new town.