Set sails to a trip around the world.

Ever since I learnt to sail at the age of about 10 near Munich on the Ammersee, I've been fascinated with this sport. Today, the Volvo Ocean Race starts in Alicante, Spain. After the 10 legs during which the 7 boats (a crew of 11 on each boat) will cover a grand total of 37.000 nautical miles, crossing the world's most treacherous seas, they will arrive in St. Petersburg, Russia in June 2009.

In each of the 11 ports where they will be stopping over, a huge crowd of sailing enthusiasts is expected to welcome them. They will all be looking for information on the best lookouts for watching the in-port races (the one in Alicante starts in less 2 hours), where to rent a sailboat themselves and maybe to discover some of the historical sailing logbooks that are kept in museums, archives and libraries. The information is all there - and every one of us discovers a tiny bit of it. Wouldn't it be great to be able to share your discoveries?

300 years ago the focus obviously lay on other details. I found those images at the Cartoteca Digital, a great resource of ancient maps, while researching the changes at port of Alicante during the last centuries: