Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Marlow is the Thames with its gilet zipped up. Its bridge was the trial run for the one in Budapest, its pub on West Street holds two Michelin stars, and its railway is a single-track shuttle to Maidenhead that everyone still calls the Donkey, as though a nickname were a timetable. Olympic oarsmen built the town's reputation, and the people who paid for it since mostly watch the river from a table by the window.