Why would a ship-owning company running cruises in the Mediterranean set up shop in Oxford, an English city just about as far from the sea as it is possible to get?

The answer, according to David Yellow, managing director of Voyages to Antiquity, who did exactly that in April last year, is because a lot of potential customers live around here. It is close to airports — and the company is working in co-operation with the Ashmolean Museum and Blackwells bookshop.

“And Oxford is fairly close to where I live, near Newbury,” he added.

We were talking in the company’s relaxed office in South Parade, Summertown, workplace for five people including Mr Yellow, 63, where, surrounded by the quiet, high-tech paraphenalia of modern western civililisation, it was somehow easy to contemplate ancient Mediterranean civilisations where it all began — and led to where we are now.

Sicily, Rome, Athens, Venice, Istanbul, Cairo —. they (and more) are all on your doorstep here in Oxfordshire, accessible aboard the new cruise company’s own ship, The Aegean Odyssey.

The new venture is the latest brainchild of serial entrepreneur Gerry Herrod, a recluse who lives even further from the sea than Mr Yellow in landlocked Switzerland.

He first employed Mr Yellow 40 years ago — and has been building up successful travel and cruise companies and then selling them on to other operators ever since.

Mr Yellow said: “We first worked together in the 1970s with a company that brought Americans into Europe. Then we found that we were providing so many passengers for cruises to Greek islands that we set up our own cruise line: Ocean Cruises Line. Then came Pearl Cruises in the Far East. “ And so the story continued, with successive firms being sold to the likes of Orient Lines, Norwegian Cruise Lines and, most recently, the All Leisure Group, which bought up Voyages of Discovery in 2005 — with Mr Yellow ‘sold’ along with the company as a director, employed by the purchaser.

Her explained: “There was usually a clause in the contract preventing Mr Herrod starting a rival business for two years; then he was free to do so.”

He added: “Now he is doing this because it is what he enjoys doing — not simply to make money.”

Mr Herrod wrote in the company’s first prospectus: “Tired of the prospect of retirement, I yearned to do something more in my favourite area of the world, the Mediterranean. But this time, in the shadow of the huge vessels that surround the major ports, I wanted to do something different.

“I wanted to try and introduce an experience where people could learn more of the many cultures and people who created the ‘cradle of civilisation’.”

The Aegean Odyssey was laid up for four years before Mr Herrod’s company bought it. Now it has been refurbished with its passenger capacity reduced from 580 to 380, and with 80 completely new cabins.

Mr Yellow said: “On our first cruise we had 290 aboard, which was above expectations. A draw is that all shore excursions are included in the fare. We reckon that if people specially join a cruise to see things, it doesn’t make sense to then charge them extra to do so.”

Being an old hand at the publicity game, he added: “This year, our first in operation, we are also offering single travellers cabins with no supplement. Single supplements have long been a bone of contention in the cruise business.”

He said other advantages of taking a cruise this year include savings of up to £1,000 per couple.

Unlike many cruise lines, which for years have been trying to bring the average age of passengers down, Voyages to Antiquity is aiming at the 55 plus age group, putting together boatloads of like-minded English speaking peoples made up, typically, of 55 per cent from the USA, and the rest predominantly from the UK and Australia.

Inspiration for the cruising programme has been drawn from the works of John Julius Norwich, author of such books as The Middle Sea, Normans in the South, and Kingdom in the Sun, and chairman of the charity Venice in Peril.

Indeed. Lord Norwich is a prominent guest speaker on many of the cruises.

Mr Herrod wrote: “Happily, I stumbled on The Middle Sea, a remarkable book about the eastern and central Mediterranean written by John Julius Norwich. It seemed to have been written essentially to help me along the way.

“I contacted John Julius and he readily agreed to be a member of our team.”

But was it not risky to set up a high capital business like this in the middle of a recession, I asked Mr Yellow?

He replied: “I wouldn’t say our business is recession-proof, of course. But we receive our revenue in a number of currencies, which helps against fluctuations.

“Then, I think many people have heard about coming higher taxes, and they are receiving very little in the way of interest for their money — so some decide to take a cruise. In any case, we have been pleasantly surprised so far by the way we have been received.”

The company has certainly made itself felt in Oxford already. It is a sponsor of the Friends of the Ashmolean and will hold a reception at the museum to launch the 2011 brochure.

It has also linked up with Blackwells, which helps advise on a reading list of books that passengers might like to take on voyages, as well as having supplied about 1,000 books to the library aboard the Aegean Odyssey. All very civilised.

Mr Yellow said: “I am constantly learning. I thought I knew something about Sicily and the Normans who ruled there, as they did here, but I am constantly realising how little I do know.”

Any regrets about coming to Oxford?

“None at all. We have had many passengers joining us from the university.”