Canterbury

Canterbury has been selling the same day out for well over a thousand years, and the pilgrims now turn up by coach with a lanyard instead of on foot with a blister. From September to June the students own everything beyond the cathedral close, which explains the queues and the landlords' quiet smile. This is a city so allergic to change that when an architect drew up plans to modernise the bombed centre, the locals formed a party to stop him and won the council. Even the railways sulk: two stations, built by rival companies, and still no sensible way to get from one to the other.