A particular highlight on most Black Sea cruises will be Istanbul the city formerly known as Constantinople and also sits on two continents. Istanbul is the home to the fabulous Topkapi Palace, the sixty-five busy, winding streets and over four thousand shops of the Grand Bazaar and the truly magnificent Blue Mosque, decorated with 20,000 iznik tiles in thirty-three different shades of blue. Elsewhere on a cruise to the Black Sea is the modern Romanian port of Constanta which is a city rich in artistic and cultural heritage, home to many museums and mosques. A new and upcoming resort since the last winter olympics is the Russian port of Sochi. You will find the majority of the cruises around the Black Sea are operated by the ultra luxury ships these days like Oceania and Regent Seven Seas to name a couple.