Un Mare Di Birra

Rome's speciality beer bars have probably had more blog words written about them than Caesar, Da Vinci and Berlusconi put together. Suffice to say that if you've been anywhere near a beer blog you probably know every inch of them already. The best is Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fa, and for their tenth anniversary, they arranged "Un Mare Di Birra", where the beer would "literally come out of the walls." How could anybody resist?
On the first night boarding was a bit slow... lots of thirsty beer dinkers eagerly waiting to board...

When we finally got on, a host of volunteers worked like mad to get the kegs in place. Finally after midnight the pub was ready to open; a large conference room with a variety of stalls around, each with six or so different kegs on. Next morning there was the "breakfast pub" on the deck, with a similar arrangement of the weaker strength beers.

The "not so mild ale" (4.5%) was my favourite of the trip, which proved that the idea that kegs are only suited to higher strength beers to be a load of bollocks.
What could be finer than sipping craft beer while gazing out at the big blue wobbly thing that mermaids live in?

The Grimaldi Lines ferry acted as a hotel...

He lost his helmet and sword somewhere along the way... the glass is a special momento of the trip...

Next up was Barcelona, where the boat would dock for a free day before returning to Rome...

I must admit that here things suddenly took a very, very, very bad turn for the worse for me. Some toerag legged it with my wallet while I was about to use a cash machine, and that meant bye bye passport and credit cards. By the time I'd been to the police and got a report, and spent ages on the phone trying to cancel all my cards, I missed the final time for boarding, and the boat had already departed. So, if you want to know what happened on the journey back, I am sadly unable to say...