The Celestyal Journey sailed a seven-night Adriatic cruise in August after the cruise line pivoted toward Europe, one of five cruise ships stranded in the Persian Gulf when the war broke out on February 28. The ship’s route now sells heritage, scenery and polished leisure, while the machinery of war and border control keeps deciding where a floating hotel can go.
Luxury on Deck, History on Shore
The Celestyal Journey can accommodate 1,260 guests in 630 cabins and packs in eight bars, seven restaurants, two swimming pools, a theater, a casino, basketball and tennis courts, a video arcade, a disco, duty-free shops and a spa. In the beauty salon, passengers can soak their feet in a huge opalescent glass basin and get a pedicure while gazing out at the waves. The Grand Dream Suite sleeps four and offers 35 square meters of room plus an 18-square-meter balcony. The Stargazer Suite is 88 square meters. Suite passengers get express check-in, access to a VIP sundeck and lounge, daily canapés delivered to the cabin, free access to the thermal suite with heated ceramic chaises, and free happy hour drinks and hors d’oeuvres at one of the bars.
The cruise line’s Greek heritage shows up in the design scheme, the restaurant menus and the tiny live olive tree in the cabin. The staff found an adjustable desk chair so the writer could get work done on board. The ship embarked from Piraeus, the port of Athens, spent its first day at sea and then arrived at Kefalonia, the largest of Greece’s Ionian islands.
Kefalonia carries its own layered history. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is set there, and the movie was filmed there. The island is known for Melissani Cave, with its underwater lake known as the Cave of the Nymphs in Greek mythology, and cruise passengers can explore it by rowboat. In Argostoli, the island’s capital, most stores downtown were closed on Sunday, but a bakery on the waterfront sold flaky spinach pie, hot from the oven, as well as feta and honey pastries near the spot where sea turtles congregate. The family-owned Gentilini Winery was open for tastings. A Holocaust Memorial sits a four-minute walk from the cruise terminal.
After the collapse of Italy’s fascist regime in 1943, the Nazis took over the Ionian islands. The remaining Jewish population of about 1,800 people was deported and murdered, although most of the Jewish community of 50,000, mainly descendants of Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, had left before the war.
Ports, Monuments and the State’s Afterlife
The next port was Dubrovnik, Croatia, a UNESCO World Heritage site with a preserved Old Town. The Dubrovnik Synagogue, on a side street with stairs, is the oldest Sephardi synagogue in use in the world and the second oldest synagogue in Europe, established in 1352. It is open to the public with a small museum. Dubrovnik’s city walls, dating from the 13th century, were a primary exterior location for King’s Landing in Game of Thrones. The wall tour costs 40 euros for adults and 15 euros for children, takes about 45 minutes at a moderate pace, and includes hundreds of steep, slippery steps, sometimes without handrails. The Journey’s late-night departure allowed for local nightlife and a visit to the Habitat Gin Lab Experience across from the port.
In Kotor, Montenegro, the cruise escaped the heat and tourist crowds with an 11-minute gondola cable-car ride to an elevation of 1,749 meters. At the top, an amphitheater-style cafe faces the view and offers cool mountain breezes and pizza. The mountaintop also has a playground and thrill rides, including an alpine roller coaster that lets riders control their own speed. The ride lasts three minutes, and the fast-track lane costs an extra eight euros and can save an hour or more in line.
In Bari, Italy, the cruise stopped at a busy port city where nonnas hand-roll orecchiette pasta in Old Town alleyways. A half-hour train ride to Trani led to the medieval Jewish quarter known as the Giudecca. The Jewish community flourished there from the ninth to 14th centuries, as reported by Benjamin of Tudela, who visited around 1166. Jewish pilgrims bound for Jerusalem gathered in the port to meet their ships. The Jewish quarter once had four synagogues, later converted to churches, and the Jewish community was expelled in 1510. The 13th-century Scolanova Synagogue was returned to the Jewish community in 2005, becoming the oldest active synagogue in Europe. Another synagogue, the Scola Grande, built in 1247, now functions as a Jewish history museum.
Memory, Deportation, and the Cruise Itinerary
The cruise then sailed back across the Adriatic to Corfu, whose old town is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Corfu is Greece’s greenest island and home to more than three million olive trees. Corfu Town is overlooked by a Venetian fortress that fended off three major Ottoman sieges, leaving Corfu the only part of Greece not incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. Many Italian Jews settled there when it was ruled by Venetian nobles from 1386 to 1797. They spoke Italkian, a mixture of Hebrew and Italian in a Venetian or Apulian dialect with some Greek words mixed in.
In 1944, Nazi soldiers, aided by Greek police, rounded up Jewish community members and imprisoned them in the fortress, from where they were deported to the Birkenau death camp. Of the 1,700 community members, only 200 survived. Jews from Corfu who made Aliyah to Israel established a monument in Holon and hold a ceremony to commemorate the community on Tamuz 8 every year.
The next stop was Katakolon, the gateway to ancient Olympia, home of the original Olympic Games, which began there in 776 BCE. Visitors can still see and run from the starting blocks in the ancient stadium. The torch-lighting relay for the modern Olympics starts at the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, although the ritual is a 20th-century invention. The Archaeological Museum houses treasures from the site and surrounding area, including a fourth-century BCE sculpture of Hermes attributed to Praxiteles. The journey also offered wine and olive-oil-tasting excursions.
The cruise returned to Athens for a final tour that included the Acropolis. After two decades, the Parthenon was freed of exterior scaffolding late in 2025, improving the view. Nearby, the modern Acropolis Museum argues for the return of the fifth-century BCE statues that once adorned the Parthenon, known as the Elgin Marbles and now held in the British Museum. Celestyal offers seven-night winter Mediterranean cruises starting from 469 euros per person, and a dedicated kids’ club program is available for children aged 3-16 on selected sailings. The cruise line says there’s little demand for kosher food on board, but airplane-style packaged meals, with dishes like beef casserole stifado and vegetarian options, are available on one month’s advance request at an additional charge. All kosher dairy is Chalav Israel.