JOTTINGS IN A JOURNAL : KOSOVO CONFLICT REROUTES SHIPS.

Byline: - Staff and wire services

A number of cruise lines are replacing calls at Dubrovnik and at ports in Croatia with ports along Italy's east coast. Cunard and Seabourn lines, both owned by Carnival, have changed the itineraries of 21 cruises by five vessels - the Vistafjord, Sea Goddesses I and II, the Seabourn Spirit and the Seabourn Legend - to avoid warfare on the eastern shores of the Adriatic.

Holland America's Maasdam is also making calls in Greece and Italy instead of Dubrovnik. Windstar Cruises' Wind Surf will eliminate calls at Dubrovnik and Rab Island, Croatia, on all 12 of its Rome-Venice sailings this summer; alternative Italian calls will be made, and Venice remains as a home port.

Euro Cruises' Delphin Queen has changed itineraries to omit the Black Sea cruises on its departures May 29, June 5, June 12 and July 6 and is providing refunds to passengers who cancel. Danube cruises through Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary are being substituted.

Boston-Japan art alliance in place

There is a new museum to visit in Japan, filled not with hanging scrolls or woodblock prints, but mainly with impressionist paintings and Mediterranean antiquities.

The Nagoya-Boston Museum of Fine Arts is scheduled to open this month in Nagoya with two exhibitions, ``Monet, Renoir and the Impressionist Landscape'' and ``Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World.''

Under a 20-year deal, the Museum of Fine Arts will send two five-month loan exhibitions annually to the 4,700-square-foot museum in Nagoya; it will also provide exhibits lasting five years and will send objects from its extensive Japanese art collection.

The museum, operated jointly by the Boston museum and the Foundation for the Arts in Nagoya, was born of necessity nearly a decade ago. The Museum of Fine Arts had plenty of art in its storerooms but was short of operating money; Nagoya, an industrial city of 4 million people between Tokyo and Kyoto, had cash but not enough art.

Millennium holds sparkle for jewelers

The thousands of purveyors of watches and diamonds and other jewelry gathering in Switzerland for an international trade fair figure the turn of the millennium is going to present a marketing bonanza.

``We estimate that there will be 28 million marriages, 69 million births and 880 million anniversaries in the year 2000, not to mention informal commemorative occasions,'' says Anthony Oppenheimer, one of the organizers of the World Watch, Clock and Jewelry Show, Basel 1999. ``The diamond is recognized the world over as the ultimate symbol of love and romance and is the natural choice made by millions to mark those special moments.''

The trade show April 29-May 6 is expected to attract some 2,500 exhibitors and 75,000 visitors from around the world. A centerpiece of the show will be the Millennium Diamond Collection of Collections. About 40 pieces of diamond jewelry and watches will be selected as ``outstanding interpretations of wearable designs for the millennium.''

Portuguese inns give royal treatment

There is a new addition to the network of government-run inns in Portugal: the 31-room Pousada Solar da Rede in a 17th-century Baroque palace built by the Italian architect Niccolo Nazzoni. The decor is also 17th century, with reproductions of furniture of the period.

The palace is set in a 100-acre vineyard and olive and orange grove near Mesao Frio in northern Portugal. Among the amenities is a wharf for cruises along the Douro River between Porto and Spain. The location in the Douro Valley, where grapes for port are grown, offers visitors a chance to investigate the region's wine production.

November through March, rates range from about $90 for a single to about $135 for a suite for two, with tax and continental breakfast, based on 177 escudos to $1. From April through October, a single will start at about $155 and a suite at about $200.

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