The Louvre will offer luxury cruises in the Adriatic Sea and Persian Gulf.
The Ponant cruise ship Le Lyrial in Venice. Photo by VWPICS/Nano Calvo/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.
The Louvre has announced its latest unexpected partnership. Earlier this year it partnered with Airbnb to let a visitor spend the night under the museum’s pyramid, and now the museum, which is consistently the most visited in the world, is partnering with the luxury cruise company Ponant to organize two cruises slated for 2020.
The first cruise, dubbed “Cultural Jewels of the Adriatic,” will be a 10-day sojourn beginning in Athens and ending in Venice. Cruise ships are a point of contention in Venice, a city plagued by overtourism, and one such vessel collided with a tourist boat in the Italian city early last month, injuring five people. Banksy recently brought this topic to light when he crashed the Venice Biennale. Perhaps in acknowledgement of this issue, Ponant will deploy its comparatively small ship Le Lyrial, with 122 staterooms and suites, for the Adriatic cruise.
The second trip, “Treasures of the Persian Gulf,” will be a nine-day outting beginning in Muscat, Oman, making stops that include Abu Dhabi—where passengers will be able to visit the Louvre Abu Dhabi—and ending in Dubai. Both cruises will have curators and directors from the museum onboard who will offer talks throughout. Rooms and suites start at $4,410 and go all the way up to $21,900.