Delightful puzzle this one, and kudos to Pointer for some lovely clues and for the placement of all the parts in the finished grid. I was a bit unconvinced by the map at first, even for a rough one, but by the time the lines were drawn and the shading done it started to look like the Google Maps image of the place :-)
Yes, "draw a loop around" sounded a little odd to me too, but with all the lines and shading that we've done by then the other ways of highlighting a word or phrase had kind of been used up, so I guess it's fair enough. I extended the ends of my lines to the edges of the grid in the nearest/shortest way, and it seemed to look ok so I hope that's what was wanted. I do agree with those who feel that the penultimate sentence is a little thin by way of a hint that some cells contain extra letters -- I got there, but found that a bit of an obstacle (and not an ingenious-clue-cracking obstacle but an irritating-vague-preamble-second-guessing obstacle, which is not my favourite kind). But apart from that minor issue, a lovely clever puzzle -- one of my favourites of the year I think. And I'd really love to go there and do the indicated thing... (if that's allowed!) (and perhaps in warmer weather!!)