Win a Luxury Michelin-Starred Break for 2 in Paris (Ends Tonight 04/04)

Normally someone else posts this, so I will post temporarily.

Thanks to andywedge.

Where was I?

“Outrageous!” booms Loudly Loquacious Friend. “Disgraceful!” agrees

Navigationally Challenged Friend (reads maps upside down). We are visiting

a city to view a 60-mile river before it is too late. It was immortalised in a

poem (“Majestic towers emboss’d in sculpture high”), but they now want to

box it in to build a car park. “Culvert it!” bawls LLF. True, parking is tricky

here. But to build a car park over the river… goodness, it’s part of the fabric

of the place.

In search of the river, and with NCF in charge, we soon find ourselves in

quite the wrong (northwest) part of the city. Which is how we stumble

cross the site of an abbey built circa 1133. A 146-mile long-distance path

passes close by. “This way,” commands NCF, leading us east. “Here it is.”

“That’s a canal,” booms LLF. It is, too: 78 miles, completed in 1790.

At this stage, I take over the navigating as we walk south-southeast. Thus,

it isn’t too long before we reach the spot where an archbishop was burnt at

the stake one March 21. We continue southeast to find the cathedral whose

college was founded by a cardinal. There, we check our watches. Exactly as

expected: five minutes and two seconds fast. Still east, until finally we reach

the river, and a bridge dating from 1777. It was designed by an architect

who died nine years later.

NCF and LLF gaze at the waters beneath. “Vandalism in the name of a car

park,” hoots LLF. “It’s a lost cause,” howls NCF. “In which case, you’re in just

the right place at just the right time,” I giggle.

Only one entry per person, using the form below, by Wednesday

1 What is the name of the river?*

A: River Cherwell

2 What is the name of the long-distance path?*

A: Shakespeare's Way