Tattoo Themed Uniworld River Cruise – 2

U River Cruise such a bonding experience 

We definitely had the sleekest, sexiest boat on the river! I love the above photo captured by Dan Howell one of the organizers of this trip. What made this a bonding experience is the constant communication between ALL the guests! Once we boarded we all were added to a WhatApp group message. It was great to see everyone’s photos and posts of their excursions if we weren’t all together. Plus, it gave us a lot to talk about over drinks each night too. We passed many other river boats each evening which seemed  to be practically empty. We learned that most river cruises cater to an elderly demographic so as we were dancing the night away the other boats had people in their rooms sleeping. This evening we had a party organized by U River cruises of a silent disco. A silent disco is an event where people dance to music listened to on wireless headphones. Blue color was for Rave style music, green was Dance, etc. Definitely funny to take the headphones off and watch everyone dancing in silence!

Smoky Beers of Bamberg 

Our next stop was the charming town of Bamberg. Bamberg is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, laid out over 7 hills where the Regnitz and Main rivers meet. We went through a few crazy locks in this section of the Main River. They said our boat was literally water lifted over one of the hills! We had a full day available for a brewery tour or just explore the town and walk around. Reese Hilburn stayed on the ship and worked on a tattoo and met up with us later.

Heather Moss, Bobby Moss, Steven Tefft and I had authentic German food at Hofbräu.  Heather ordered Coq au vin (Hahn mit Weißwein & Wurzelgemüse geschmort) – chicken in wine sauce which we all had to try!  I ordered the Bratwurstteller mit Sauerkraut & Kloß2 – different kind of bratwurst with sauerkraut & potato dumpling. Bamberg is known as Bierstadt with many breweries. We tried the local brew named, Schlenkerla Rauchbier “Smoky beer”.  yuk.. Not for me …  Certain breweries maintain this “smoked beer” tradition by continuing to use malt which had been dried over open flames. We walked and explored more trying to find tattoo studio which unfortunately took us farther away from the boat and it was closed! At this point we had to make our way back to the boat ..  did you know Uber is not allowed in Bavaria? We ran…

After finding a unicorn (seriously.. I found a unicorn statue) and lighting a candle for my mom at a beautiful Baroque church we made our way back to the boat. It was a gorgeous, warm evening so we all went up to the upper deck for the sunset. The Ice Bar upstairs was open!  One of the guests, Mo, purchased beer pong in town which launched competitions on the upper deck until dinner was served.

Tattooed with Fraktur letter G 

I think it was Steve’s idea around almost midnight that we should all get the letter “G” tattooed on us to commemorate this awesome trip in Germany. 12 of us got the letter G tattooed on us to forever bond our time together.  Steve choose a German, “Fraktur” font.  The name comes from the Latin fractus, meaning “broken.” Fraktur is a Blackletter typeface — or a gebrochene Schrift in German, which means “broken font.” Reese tattooed my ankle. Steve tattooed Heather, etc. This went on late into the evening…

Read Part 3  of Nürnberg, itself the center of Nazi propaganda activities.

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