Alicante
Cape Town
Cochin
Singapore
Qingdao
Rio de Janeiro
Boston
 

The 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race will visit port 11 port during the course of the 37,000 miles over nine months. Each one is unique in its character, culture and its cuisine.

Alicante
Alicante may be best known as a popular holiday destination but that would be to misunderstand the role the town is performing over the next two years. Yes, its airport handles every year the fourth biggest passenger footfall in Spain, but a lot of that is heading even further south, to the beaches of places like Benidorm.
Cape Town
Dubbed the Tavern of the Seas, Cape Town has been a welcome sight for sailors ever since man took to wandering the oceans in search of new lands, new trade and ever greater riches. Today it still remains a major hub in terms of world trade, but for decades it has also been a vital stop in the ocean racing world.
 
Cochin
Centuries ago it was a hub for spice merchants and traders around the world, but today you’ll find Cochin a bustling cosmopolitan city. Cochin also has many outlying islands, forming part of Kerala’s famed backwaters.The port city of Cochin is a mosaic of diverse cultures and communities.
 
Singapore
Singapore is tiny compared with its neighbours in the Southeast region, but it packs gigantic fun and excitement. There won’t be a mad scramble to flag down a cab by Friday night’s revellers stumbling out of clubs at Clarke Quay in the wee hours of the morning. Cabbies are just around the corner ready to ferry them home.
Qingdao
The 2008-09 event has taken some of the lessons from in-port racing in 2005-06 and will attempt to bring the action to the spectators without compromising the racing itself. The courses for 2008-09 will be windward-leeward, with a mid-course gate and triangular viewing area.
 
Rio de Janeiro
Ask any group of people to name their dream destinations and Rio de Janeiro is sure to feature for most of them. It has everything. Exotic carnivals, beautiful women on the endless Copacabana Beach, throbbing Latin music, sunshine, wooded mountains leading down to tight coves and long stretches of beach bordering an azure blue sea.
Boston
Boston may have shaken off its Puritanical roots over the last several centuries, but it hasn’t lost hold of its sense of history. If anything, the more the city has progressed and embraced global sophistication, the more it has clung to its traditions and original character.
 
Galway
It was a great coup for Ireland, and particularly for the ancient west coast city of Galway, when they landed the Volvo Ocean Race. The event will make its first-ever Irish stopover in the fabled waters of Galway Bay in the late spring of 2009 after the Volvo fleet has completed a high-speed Atlantic dash from Boston, Massachusetts. And it will stay for two weeks.
Marstrand
The town first attracted attention as a centre for the herring fishing industry in the 1200s, then again in the 16th century. By the 1800s, with those profitable herring gone, the salting houses were transformed into spas and the town became the focus of a new industry, tourism, aided by the cachet of being a favourite royal retreat.
 
Stockholm
We used to sail from Södertälje where I grew up, to Stockholm and then out to the Stockholm archipelago. We would pass through a lock before Stockholm, sail past Stockholm City Hall, pass through another lock and then out to the archipelago, towards the island of Möja. We always took the same route and I think that’s why my first memory of Stockholm is of water.
St Petersberg
St Petersburg, the country’s heart and soul, is a city on the move. President Vladimir Putin’s cosmopolitan home town, while embracing its famous and regal past as the country’s capital for more than 200 years, is a city moving forward and typifies Russia’s rapid march away from the stranglehold of the Soviet era.
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