Bobbing along, bobbing along...

the bottom of the beautiful, briiiiiny sea...

and briny it certainly was. On Saturday my friends and I headed over to the...erm, lovely... town of Soltau for a day at the Therme Spa. I'm only joking, Soltau was actually quite nice, but the weather was awful and I made the mistake of wearing a t-shirt when it was not even close to being warm enough for that. And it's hard to really like a place when you're freezing your royal tail off.

However, the Therme Spa more than made up for any chilly-ness I experience. It was 3 hours of straight up relaxation. Brilliant.

Beth, Ian and Megan

The complex here is huge - they've got indoor swimming pools, outdoor swimming pools, a sauna garden, fitness centre, salt pools, waterslide, jumping platforms, massage lounge, cafe, bar... it just goes on and on... And we more than made the most of it!

Or at least, we made the most of the salt pools. Except for a brief jaunt over to the jumping towers (where the 5m tower was closed :( and I had to make to with the 3m one) we spent most of the day soaking in the salt. It was soooo relaxing - minus the part where you went underwater and your eyes burned when you re-opened them. They had a big pool that was 36 degrees, a hot tub, a hot bubbly tub, an indoor/outdoor pool and a steam room. I'm pretty sure I maxed out my yearly salt allowance in less than 3 hours.

The steam room was my favourite - it's like you were on the seaside and in a rainforest at the same time. Super super humid and steamy (makes sense... it is called a steam room after all) and salty too. Fantastic for the respiratory system.

Once we got out of the pools and washed all the salt off we headed over to the local Brauhaus - aka brewery :). That was quite possibly the best decision of the day because I was UNBELIEVABLY dehydrated from hanging out in a warm salt pool for 3 hours. So the thought of a nice cold beer was absolutely exquisite. Plus the food was delicious!

Megan and Beth looking all excited to pose for a picture...

while really thinking: "get it over with... I'm dying of thirst!!"

Myself and Ian looking mightily refreshed - our picture was taken after the first sip!

Here's a nice shot of the... um... machines where they make beer:

But beer and schnitzel wasn't nearly enough to satisfy the demands of the stomach after a day at the spa. Next stop: ice cream!!

Nothing like a large portion of sugar to counteract the healing effects of the spa.

Then I stopped a fight:

sorta...

And after this oh-so-strenuous day of floating in a salt pool, melting in a steam room, devouring schnitzel, savouring beer and topping it all off with ice cream - I slept like a log. Zzzz

I'm still not sure that I've totally recovered...

Cheers,

Sandy