This is the Jersey Shore, a surreal strip of boardwalk that has been featured in a number of popular reality television shows recently. We were in the area and decided to stop by for an afternoon to see what the hype was about.

The boardwalk itself surprised me. It has a classic old fashioned vibe. Pastel colors abound, as do fun games and the usual bad souvenir shops. The beachfront has calm water (it’s the Atlantic ocean, after all) and white sand. It’s paradise – in theory.

The reality is this: the Jersey Shore isn’t about the waves or the sand (you have to pay to access the beach anyway). It’s all about the people watching. Yes, you could make the argument that all boardwalks are about people watching and I’d have to agree with you. But this one takes the cake. It’s, well, it’s just plain ridiculous.

Most striking, in my opinion, are the extreme measures the kids (most of the people strolling the boardwalk were high school age) took their bodies to. The boys were heaving around overworked upper bodies on little chicken legs. The ladies looked like they had just rolled out of a tanning bed because, you know, you have to tan before you go to the beach to tan.

The food was terrible, as Martin describes here, but the people were unlike any we’ve ever seen. And coming from two people that just spent 14 months traveling the world, that’s saying something. If you’re in the New York area and have a half day to kill, head on over to the Shore. Pack a lunch, plenty of sunscreen and at least $7 to get to the beach. Otherwise you might have to spend your day in the shade of the carnival games, vying for one of these fabulous prizes.

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What makes the Mall stand out from the others is the fact that it is still a work in progress. New monuments, such as the World War II memorial, are still being added. It is also an active place of mourning and devotion – we found the Vietnam war memorial especially gripping: a place where people leave flags and flowers for their fallen loved ones.

Other than that, it is a pleasant, sunny expanse – the perfect place for a stroll with an ice cream in hand. If this fails to entertain you, you can always go check out the Lincoln Memorial. Isn’t Lincoln’s head just strangely Frankensteinish?

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Coming back, we supposed that the stomach adventure was over. Food safety standards and pasteurized products would keep us safe from Delhi belly and the Rangoon two-step. Imagine our surprise when we realized that we had a hard time digesting American restaurant food. All those processed items like fluffy white bread, sausages, cheese and god knows what they do to meat over here – almost ended up making us sick.

Thankfully, our friends have been treating us to home-cooked food, made with love and good produce. Meanwhile, I’m not sure if I want to eat a cream cheese bagel or have a Starbucks latte ever again. Funny how things work out sometimes.

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The current Hagia Sofia dates back to the 6^th century, even though there has been a Hagia Sofia at this site since 350 AD. It is famous not so much for its exterior as for the interior – the way the central dome is constructed represents a revolution in architecture. Walking in, you get the sense of being inside a giant hall in a separate universe, completely apart from the outside world. It was the main church for the Byzantine empire: a central place in the first thousand years of Christian history.

In 1453, the city fell (or was liberated, depending on how you look at it) to the Turks, and Hagia Sofia was converted into a mosque. I have mixed emotions about this: the black and golden shields that hang in there so obviously do not belong in that space (they were added in the 19^th century), and the Arabic script painted inside the main dome look clumsy and out of place. Ironically, the conversion into a mosque probably saved Hagia Sofia, as the church had fallen into a state of serious dilapidation during the last decades of the Byzantian empire. In 1935, the government declared it to be a museum, and I believe this is the best solution for this incredible building. If you want to see an actual example of Islamic architecture, the stunning Blue Mosque is just across the street.

Hagia Sofia is a stunner.

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This video is from the ground floor of the same building.

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Before letting you in on our cheap little secrets I’ll get the painful bits out of the way: there are two absolute must-do sites in Istanbul that are not free. There’s no getting around it. You’ll want to see them, you’ll be sorry if you don’t, so plan to spend around $10/person for the Hagia Sophia and $5/person to see the Byzantine Cistern. More on those two in a moment.

Right then! Let’s get to it. We’ll begin our day with it’s most important meal: breakfast. Any decent hotel/guesthouse/hostel will include the cost of it in your stay. Our breakfast was simple fare: an egg, bread, olives, tomato and cheese but it will cost you nothing (above the cost of the room itself). Many of the hotels in the Sultanahmet area have rooftop decks with spectacular views of the Blue Mosque. Delicious, nutritious Turkish breakfast overlooking the Istanbul skyline: Free!

Take time to soak in the morning views over breakfast, but it’s best to set out early. The Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’s jaw-dropping 1,700 year old church-turned-museum opens at 9:00am and you’ll want to be there on the dot. We were lucky and beat the busloads that poured in as we were leaving. As I said, expect to pay around $10/person to enter but take my word for it – it is worth every penny.

Once we had our fill of the amazing Byzantine-era church, we checked out the ancient water Cistern located conveniently across the street. A few flights below street level, the Cistern is a dimly lit colonnaded Byzantine-era water tank. It still holds a pool of water and giant fish, to boot! Again, it will set you back $5/person to enter but you don’t want to miss it.

Istanbul waterfront

A short walk from the Cistern exit is the Bosphorus waterfront, a popular place to grab a ferry. In the interest of saving money, we opted out of the ferry, preferring to spend the afternoon walking. As long as you have a good pair of shoes, walking is the absolute best way to check out a new town. Taking a stroll along the waterfront: Free!

By this time we’d worked up quite an appetite. Thanks to some great advice from @ayearinmotion and @noplacelikeoz, we knew just the spot for a great inexpensive Istanbul waterfront specialty: the fish sandwich. Passing up the more expensive fish restaurants in the area, we found a great little vendor on the far side of the bridge. A fresh caught grilled fish sandwich: $2/person

A short walk up a steep hill after crossing the Galata bridge is Istiklal Caddesi in Beyoglu, a fantastic area recommended to us by @italofileblog. We walked up the hill, but the area can be reached by tram if those legs are starting to tire. Chic restaurants and great window shopping abound here. Exploring the maze-like backstreets of Istaklal Cad: Free!

Our next move was a return to the Sultanahmet area for a much needed cup of Turkish tea and a plate of baklava. We opted to sit on a main road to people watch while divulging in the sweet, crunchy goodness. A little people watching while satisfying our sweet tooth: $2/person

Carpet vendor in the Grand Bazaar

A little pep talk was needed before our next destination. It went something like, “I will not spend money. I will just look. I will not fall in love with anything.” Our destination (which you might have guessed): the glorious Grand Bazaar. Housing over 4,000 stalls, this maze of glittery, golden temptations is something you have to see to believe. Our tip: don’t show an interest or you’ll walk away with the object. The shop keepers are that good. Fortunately we’d already bought our souvenir a few weeks earlier, so we walked away without spending a dime (well, lira to be exact). Spending an hour playing what-would-we-buy-if-we-had-money in the Grand Bazaar: Free!

Blue Mosque Interior

The final site for the day was the Blue Mosque. Our tips: check out the closing times, as it is a place of worship and closes several times a day for worship. They enforce a strict dress code, but have helpful swaths of cloth for those who might need a little more coverage. Donations are welcome, but they charge no entrance fee. Spending time checking out the interior of this enormous Muslim holy place: Free!

Dinner was an exploration of another Turkish specialty: the kebab. This was followed by a cone of (strangely stringy) Turkish ice cream while watching the last of the sunset over the Blue Mosque.

It takes stamina but a day in the the fascinating ancient city of Istanbul is possible for just under $20/person. Thank you Istanbul for the kind of day that makes us know we’ll return (with a long list for the bazaar) soon!

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The smell of seawater hangs heavy in the air. Tank-top clad women, so different from the their Turkish neighbors, stroll proudly down the boardwalk. Sidewalks are lined with trellises covered in twisted grape vines. Ancient men sit together on the street corners playing backgammon. It’s the kind of place we’ve been searching for; a place where you unpack your backpack, buy bottles of wine and fill your day with deliciously decadent activities. So, to celebrate Batumi’s aged romantic vibe (and in the name of all things anti-backpacker), we spent yesterday in the pursuit of decadence.

The day started with breakfast in our room of left-over cheese pie and orange juice. It’s not necessarily a decadent start to the day, unless you know that they came out of our in-room mini-fridge. That’s right. We have a fridge in our room. Total decadence.

The morning’s activity was a short ride south of town: a still intact Roman fortress. The ruins were close enough that we only had to spend just two hours round-trip to see them, thus leaving our afternoon free. For anyone who plans to drink wine for most of the day, sightseeing in the morning is a must.

Lunch was, surprise-surprise, more cheese pie (it seems to be all they eat here), washed down with a local brew. OK, actually it was two big mugs of beer each. But who’s counting?

We were scheduled to play tennis in the late afternoon, so we whiled away the hottest hours of the day (and the lunch buzz) relaxing in our room. Once the sun had passed sunburn time, we headed to the tennis courts dressed in our Wimbledon best. Neither of us have actually played tennis in our adulthood. Needless to say, we were amazing. An hour spent accidentally whacking the ball over the boundary fences – decadent(ly embarrassing)!

Our tennis cool-down session was spent at a restaurant overlooking the sea. A bottle of delicious Georgian red wine later, we were eating more cheese pie and watching the sun set over the Black Sea coast.

It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while we have the perfect (anti-backpacker) day.

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The fortress is also where the Apostle Matthias, sometimes known as Levi (patron saint of alcoholism, carpenters, smallpox, tailors and Gary, Indiana), lies buried under a neat little rock. Pilgrims sometimes gather around it to read from the Bible and pay their respects. We paid our respects to the pilgrims, by not taking pictures during their ceremony.

All in all Gonio is a nice little distraction from the hedonistic beach town of Batumi. I imagine that come summer, enormous hordes of tourists swarm the fort, leaving a trail of melted ice-cream and cigarette butts in their wake. We just happened to catch it at exactly the right time – spring in Georgia is just awesomely beautiful, and Gonio is no exception.

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I think it’s great when a town shows a bit of age. A few cracks here and a little rust there creates character. Knowing this, it’s no surprise that I’ve fallen in love with Batumi, the popular seaside town on the southern tip of Georgia.

The air feels Mediterranean, the streets are wide, the homes are properly run-down (not crumbling, but romantically cracked) and the sun doesn’t stop shining. OK, it goes down for a while at night, but in the day it’s divine.

Sadly, I’m not the only one to discover Batumi. The bigwigs (Hilton and Sheraton) have moved to town. Their massive hotels are due to be completed in 2011. It seems the town is following suit with a frenzy of rebuilding and refurbishing. Most of the town remains in character with beautifully rusted facades, flanked by impossibly tall grape vines, but change is in the air.

To illustrate my point, I’ve put a photo gallery together that shows both sides of the town – Batumi, new and old.

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The border between Turkey and Georgia was a pretty interesting place in itself. We’ve rarely seen a slacker post. The border crossing area itself consists of a large courtyard, littered with small offices. To get through, you ping and pong back and forth between four or five sleepy officials, one more indifferent than the other. After a while, we emerged with the right stamps in our passports, chartered a rip-off priced minibus (I always get fleeced on the first transport in any new country) and arrived in Akhaltsikhe, a small, cute Georgian border town.

Our first impression: this is a very different place from Turkey. The way people dress, talk and behave are far differently. It’s also intensely beautiful. I mean get-outta-here-you’ve-got-to-be-kidding beautiful.

Unfortunately, our time here is limited – we have airline tickets and hotels booked, so an extended stay is out of the question. The alluring towers and mountains of the Svaneti region beckoned, but visiting that part of the country would mean that we’d have to spend most of our travel time on transports. Instead, we’ve opted to take a decadent holiday by the Black Sea. Things could be worse.

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