Onward to Italy

The above image was taken by Graeme in St. Mark’s Square in Venice a couple of years ago. I was looking forward to seeing what the spot would look like when I got to Venice.

Onward to Italy
Well we managed to get what we wanted into one bag each plus, of course, a bag for the camera equipment that I was taking with me. For this trip this consists of my d300 with the primary lens being my 12 – 24. For the macro, if I get opportunity to try a bit of macro, I brought along my old MF 55mm f3.5 macro. It is small and light and for macro that I will likely be doing MF will be fine. As a short tele, I brought along my MF 105mm F2.5 mainly because it is both light and fast and also small enough to be relatively inconspicuous for a lens of that magnification. The big decision that I had to make was whether I would bring along a lens with a longer reach. Finally decided on my old 75 – 300mm. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to use it!

Knowing how early to get to the airport is part luck, part Science and part skill and experience. Our first route was blocked by a construction project, but Graeme was able to take an alternate route to get us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. An orange Jazz aircraft was waiting to take us to Montreal. Other lime-green Jazz aircraft were there, too, but ours was the orange one.

Time required to fly to Montreal is 30 minutes plus another two hours to get to the airport, check-in, get through security, wait to board the plane. Driving time to Montreal is about 2 1/2 hours :-).

It was the first time that I have been seated at a window right beside the wheels on one of these small planes. It was interesting to watch the hydraulic in action at the moment of touch down.

Our next aircraft was a Swiss Air Airbus A-330-300 which seats 236. We were in seats in row 34 which put us far enough behind the wing to have an unobstructed view of the clouds and land below. We were cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet.

Since I was on the south side of the plane with a clear view of the ground, it was easy to identify were we. Were as we passed over New Brunswick, then over the quilted landscape of PEI, then over the rugged highlands of Cape Breton before crossing over Newfoundland as the colours of a nice sunset lit up the few clouds below the wingtip.

Distance 6004 km from Montreal to Zurich.