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By Trish • July 14th, 2009

We arrived in Fussen, Germany in the evening after our drive from Venice. The landscape and culture couldn’t be more different. In Fussen, the mountains encircle farmlands and gingerbread-decorated Bavarian houses. Fussen is the land of sausage, beer and veiner schnitzel, and littering is verboten. We stayed at Suzanne’s B&B just outside of town. Suzanne was an interesting host. She ran a tight ship, and although her personality was a bit bossy, her accommodations, recommendations, and breakfast were wonderful. There was ..read more

I had always wanted to go to Venice one day, and now I have – in a day and a half. We drove into this watery city of islands via a causeway, parked our car at a modern garage, then boarded our first vaporetto ( boats that provide public transit) to float into Europe’s best preserved big city of a hundred islands connected by 400 bridges and countless narrow waterways and alleys. We disembarked at the center of the island, at ..read more

Driving to Cinque Terre, Italy (named for its five fishing villages connected by panoramic cliffside walking trails) was an adventure in itself. Italian roads resemble its pasta: thin and twisty. We headed toward the town of Vernazza, the fourth town on the Cinque Terre hiking circuit. Vernazza is a picturesque town, where locals pull up their fishing boats onto the streets to “park” them at night. We stayed at Trattoria Gianni, after we parked the Mercedes Boxvan outside the town ..read more

We woke up this morning to views of the Alps – thank God! It was absolutely incredible. The peaks were rugged and snow-covered, in and out of the clouds, and the temps were in the 50s. But no rain. So we quickly had breakfast and set out for a 5-mile ridgeline walk from Muren to the next town of Grutschalp. The hiking path was gravelly and wide, and steadily sloped downhill the whole way. It was beautiful. We took so many photos, ..read more

Day 7: Switzerland The alpine resort of Murren stands about 5,400 feet high in the Swiss Alps, and looks like heaven on earth in the pretty picturesque postcards at the front desk of our hotel. We took two trams to reach this indescribably beautiful town, and the reason I can’t describe it is because the view out our window is thick, grey and soupy. Yes, it’s been raining in the Alps all day, and although we had some tantalizingly brief glimpses of ..read more

On Friday, we travelled from London to Paris on the Eurostar Rail via the Chunnel, the tunnel under the English Channel connecting England and France. The train ride itself was easy – just under three hours. But getting from the train station to our hotel in Paris was another story. I refer to this day as the “luggage” day, and now I know why they call it luggage. We lugged our stuff for at least a mile in London ..read more

Our first two days were spent exploring some of the most notable sights of London: Buckingham Palace and the changing of the Guard, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, The Tower of London, The London Eye, The Winston Churchill Museum, Piccadilly Circus to see the Alfred Hitchcock show The Thirty Nine Steps , and a boat ride up the Thames River. Everything but The London Eye was in one day – yesterday. That’s right. The day we arrived, Dave ..read more

Day One Today begins the Reske family European adventure: Seven countries in four weeks with four kids. The possibilities are exponential. I can remember the exact place Dave and I were when we dreamed up the idea of taking our family to Europe. It was on the beach in Puerto Rico in January. We were lounging on the beach, soaking up the rays, still adjusting to the fact that just a few hours before, we had left a typical single-digit frigid ..read more

Week #8 It’s finally upon us – the week of the Sharon Timlin 5K race!  You may be feeling a number of emotions during this week, ranging from excitement to nervousness to uncertainty.  New runners have a lot of questions before their first race – what should I expect? What should I wear? What should I be eating this week? How much should I run? How do I plan for the weather? What if I’m not familiar with the course? This blog ..read more

Week #7 Two important fitness components that you should begin to include along with your running are stretching and strength training. Below you’ll find some helpful information on both: Stretching Stretching helps you stay flexible and prevent injuries. Ideally, you should stretch for about 10 minutes before your run, and ten minutes after. If you only have time to stretch once, howwever, the best time to stretch is after your run, This is because your muscles have had a chance to warm up, and be ..read more