Culture club

Sunshine and ancient history in one trip. Belinda Archer joins the boffins on an educational cruise around the Greek Cyclades

There are adventure holidays, fly and flop holidays, shopping trips, and ecotourism breaks, but how about an improving few weeks in the Mediterranean sunshine combining learning with leisure? Westminster Classic Tours runs Turkish gulet cruises around historically significant sites in Greece, Croatia and Turkey. The operator was set up by a group of academics who specialise in the classics and ancient history, and each boat has its own on-board egg-head throughout the trip.

A range of 14 cruises are on offer through the year, covering various themes from The Origins of Western Thought to The Legend of Alexander, and your resident academic delivers daily lectures on board as well as chaperoning on-shore site visits. The idea is that they offer deeper insight than your average local tour guide, incomprehensible English included, taking you to sites that are off the beaten tourist track.

I decided to sample The Crucible of Western Art tour, which consists of a cruise around the Greek Cyclades, taking in such locations as Delos, the birthplace of Apollo, and Akrotiri, the Minoan city destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1635, which is famed for its frescoes. But would I be surrounded by boffins? Would it feel more like homework than a much-needed holiday in the sun?

The trip turned out to be a perfect balance between leisure and culture. Each day consisted of a swim off the boat before breakfast, followed by a gentle crossing to the next island, light lunch, a site visit, then a 45-minute lecture (usually accompanied by tea and cake or pre-dinner drinks, depending on the timing). The day ended with another swim, then dinner. The pace was relaxed and informative, and while clearly several of the guests were amateur experts, there was still scope for the less knowledgeable.

Richard Stoneman, our very own academic who had suitably impressive credentials as a published author on Alexander the Great, and honorary fellow of Exeter University, nicely blended humour with information in his lectures. "If someone doesn't know very much it is a pleasure to enlighten them," he reassured me. "You don't have to be an expert to come on one of these trips."

Having said that, mealtime conversation was of a fairly elevated standard, with individuals arguing over the differences between squinches and pendentives (both architectural ancient roofing techniques apparently) rather than the football dramas of Euro 2008. Holiday reading matter, too, was far from the trashy, page-turning airport novel. Stoneman's downtime choice was "Travels with Herodotus" by a Polish journalist, while others were reading "The letters of Vincent van Gogh" and various improving historical biographies.

But clearly Westminster, which used to offer the tours exclusively to school children and university alumni, is doing something right. Many of the clients, a broad mix of artists, civil servants, IT specialists and art school lecturers, were multiple repeat guests. The gulet was gleaming and roomy and the food, too, was excellent, with Unal the cook producing extraordinary meals from his tiny galley down below, including freshly baked bread, afternoon cakes, and lavish Turkish feasts each evening.

So sea, sunshine, excellent company and a little light learning: a civilised sojourn indeed. Interested parties could even club together and privately charter a luxury gulet, complete with plasma screen TVs, extra staff and on-board Jacuzzi, as well as resident classicist.

Westminster Classic Tours (020 8286 7842; www.westminsterclassictours.com) offers a programme of cultural gulet tours around the Turkish, Greek and Dalmatian Coasts.  The 15 day Crucible of Western Art tour starts from £2231 per person based on two sharing a double cabin and including all meals, drinks, transfers but excluding flights.