Ponant has announced a new partnership with Musée du Louvre to offer two new cultural cruises in 2020. Through itineraries carefully designed by Ponant and onboard programming with curators and department directors from the Louvre, the cruise line said that guests will discover the ancient lands that have inspired the museum’s collections. The two sailings through the Adriatic and the Persian Gulf will depart in August and November 2020, respectively.

The first cruise will highlight the cultural and artistic treasures of Ancient Greece and the Adriatic, sailing from Athens to Venice in August 2020.

The itinerary will transit the Corinth Canal and sail through fjord-like Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. Shore visits to UNESCO World Heritage sites will include the Acropolis of Athens, the Delphi, and the well-preserved 1,700-year-old Diocletian’s Palace in the heart of Split, Croatia.

In November 2020, the second cruise will take travelers to discover the cultural and artistic riches of the Persian Gulf on the new Ponant Explorer ship, Le Jacques-Cartier. Sailing from Muscat (Oman) to Dubai with ports of call in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the new itinerary promises to explore the intermixing of tradition and modernity in Islamic culture. Guests will also learn about maritime traditions in Sur that date back a thousand years; visit the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, designed by I.M. Pei who is the architect of the Louvre pyramid; and tour the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the first universal museum in the Arab World.