Tuesday started with a bike tour of the city that provided plenty of great scenes for photography and satisfied any need to be a dare devil by biking on the bustling streets of Paris. The day ended with what else but the Eiffel Tower.

Our bike tour crew at the end of the tour

The Tower is currently lit with blue lights and is decorated on one side with yellow stars, which represents the European Union. Around 10pm, the Tower sparkles for 10 minutes every hour on the hour. It was breathtaking.

10pm at the Eiffel Tower

Wednesday has been filled with the Louvre–the world’s largest museum. We got to see and were allowed take pictures of the famous Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and more. We then visited some other little places you may have heard of like Notre Dame, St. Chapelle, and the Orsay Museum. Better and more pictures to be posted soon. All the pictures in this post were taken with Mell’s little point and shoot camera.

Only 3 more days until the wedding! The groom was supposed to fly from New York today, so we hope the computer glitch with the airlines has been resolved. Tomorrow, we leave to get acquainted with Jossigny France (just outside of Paris), where much of the wedding celebration will be held.

Just a quick update to let you know that we made it to Germany and are all hunkered in at my old high school friend, Mellisa’s beautiful German townhouse.   Yesterday we successfully visited Graphistudio (our Itallian album publishing company) in Arba Italy, and got back to Venice in time to tour St. Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, take a gondola ride, and eat at that restaurant that we’ve been trying to eat at for 3 days (it’s been closed for renovations).  We took the train today from Venice to Milan, and then up through Switzerland.  After a late train, a missed connection, and a quick correction we arrived in Kaiserslautern (which is the town close to the American Military bases and Hospital in Germany), where Mellisa and her friends picked us up and took us to downtown for dinner with their AF friends.  Snitzel and beer 🙂 . We are going to spend the next couple days taking pictures at the local castles for our international portfolio.

I have reliable internet again, so I’m processing pictures and will have a photo post soon with more of Venice and our Graphistudio trip.

Well, packing is now done except for the few batteries that we are leaving on charge right up until we leave. For those equipment junkies out there that may be interested in the gear we are bringing, here it is:

Cameras:

1. Canon 5d
2. Canon 5d
3. Canon 40d
4. Canon 70-200 IS f2.8L
5. Canon 24-105 IS f4.0L
6. Canon 16-35 IS f2.8L
7. Canon 50mm f1.4
8. Canon 580EX II Speedlight
9. Canon 580EX II Speedlight
10. Canon 550 Speedlight
11. 2 Belt-attachable Camera Holsters
12. My trusty batman utility belt (hefty belt that holds my various cases and pouches to and hold the sundries I need to carry.
13. Full compliment of camera batteries and chargers
14. A few sets of our usual rechargeable AA batteries for the flashes, but I’ll primarily be relying on Lithium Ion AA batteries for the travel photography and especially the wedding photography to avoid the need to recharge on the go.
15. Monopod

Believe it or not, just about all of that of that fits on one modest 21″ carry-on roller bag. Mell is carrying the laptop in her backpack with our carry-on sundries, and we are checking one slightly larger bag with most of our other necessities. The Monopod is in the checked bag. I bought a fancy lowpro Camera backpack with compartments for everything you’d ever want, but I found that my various belt cases are perfect padding for the equipment in the small roller bag. Sorry lowpro, you’re stayin’ home.