General question about photographing my holiday

Well its my honeymoon as well so its slightly more important.

I have booked a 2 week honeymoon to Italy in May to take in Rome, Montecassino, Florence, Lake Como and Milan.

I have already acquired my camera and suitable lens (and have a speedlight 430 ex 2 on order).
I have a Domke bag to carry my equipment and a 4gb memory card.

Couple of questions:-

1. What, if anything, more do I need equipment wise?
2. Is a 4gb memory card sufficient for the holiday or am I likely to need more?

I am likely to put the photos into those online book services where they let you upload pictures into a booklet (any recommendations for a website appreciated - i have used Blurb before).

Bearing in mind my intended use of the pictures what size / format pictures should I use for my camera settings.

I am not totally au fait with photo editing. I usually use sharpening and other basic features of some programs so thats it. I have taken pictures in raw format but dont really know what to do with them once I have

I currently use the largest JPEG setting but Im guessing this is not needed for the pictures I will take? Or will I want to take large pictures of the Colliseum and other landmarks?

Any help / guidance appreciated

You should definitely take large jpeg or raw pics and get several more CF cards! You will probably want to make prints and large images are better for that.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon, right? Better to have extra cards than not enough.

Have fun!

-js

500D uses sd cards, so buy more of those, unless youre bringing a laptop. But youll need way more. you still have some time before may, go on a daytrip and see how many pictures you take on average.
But if i was goign away for 2 weeks id need a looooooot of memory.

If you are taking a DLSR you should really really shoot in RAW, otherwise youd might as well buy a p&s and enjoy your honeymoon.

You might want to bring a small light tripod, if youre going to do night-walks or go out to eat you might come across some really nice night time scenes. (they need long exposure = tripod)

Colosseum*

Until then read around on the forums and you'll learn a lot. But if you dont have time to learn about exposure right now and you think you will in the future, definitely shoot in RAW. You'll hate yourself if you do get good at editing and having on large jpgs to work with.

Few things:

1. Insure what you've got. Travel insurance will look after you as well as your gear.

2. If you don't know the differences between RAW and JPEG, shoot RAW.

(Others may jump on here and argue with this, but they are talking crazy talk).

Years ago I was in your exact same position (new to photography, going away on a big trip) and I skimped on storage and shot JPEG...still regret it to this day. If you're unsure what to do with them, Google 'RAW to JPEG batch conversion in DPP', post a question here, or PM me when you get back.

3. Memory is cheap - holidays aren't. Take a LOT more memory. The SD cards that the 500D take are not expensive. You're traveling to big cities, so if you fall short on storage you can pick up extra cards as you go.

4. +1 for the travel tripod

5. Enjoy your honeymoon. Don't spend the whole time behind the viewfinder!