Long Branch is like Côte d’Azur, France

GETTING THERE
By car: If you can stomach Holland Tunnel traffic and skyrocketing fuel costs, take the Garden State Parkway to Exit 105. Without traffic, the trip will take approximately 75 minutes from lower Manhattan.

By rail: New Jersey Transit offers frequent daily trains between Penn Station and Long Branch. Trips take about an hour and a half and cost $12. From the train station it’s about a half-mile or five-block walk to Pier Village.

By ferry: Take to the water with a shuttle service run by SeaStreak America between Manhattan (at Pier 12 on the corner of Wall and South Street or East 35th Street at the FDR) and Highlands-Conner’s Ferry Landing. The cost is $43 round-trip or $25 one-way, and the SeaStreak vessel offers a full bar and concessions during its 40-minute ocean voyage. Only cash is accepted for tickets on board. For schedules call 888-715-7899 or visit visit seastreak.com. From the Jersey terminus, hop a $12 cab (Shore Cab, 203 Clinton Place; 732-222-6688) for the 15-minute journey to town.

WHAT'S CÔTE D'AZUR ABOUT IT?
Glamorous clubs pulse with a sweaty yet well-dressed crowd; modish seafood restaurants serve towers of slippery oysters atop crushed mounds of ice; and small, expensive boutiques teem with skimpy coral and turquoise summer dresses. The bed-size beachside lounge chairs—set among specially delivered palm trees—and the refined foodstuffs at Ceriello (20 Centennial Dr, 732-870-8200), a gourmet grocery that sells such picnic luxuries as Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, fat-speckled prosciutto and golden baguettes, further conspire to give Long Branch a Mediterranean aura.

WHAT'S JERSEY ABOUT IT?
The only gym in Pier Village is not an NYSC, but a Gold’s Gym (4 Ocean Ave; 732-229-2257, goldsgym.com); all the gas stations are full service; and the beach volleyball courts are chock-full of deeply accented Guidos, albeit with sick bodies.

THE BASICS
Long Branch sits on a curve of the shore, giving it a fair amount of landscape to explore. Do so leisurely with a rented beach cruiser from the Peddler (150 Ocean Blvd; 732-229-6623, thepeddler.com); bike rentals are $28 per day or $9 per hour. Or, if you’d rather hang ten on low, rolling swells, rent a longboard in town for $25 per day at the Little Surf Shop (63 Brighton Ave; 732-263-1313, littlesurfshop.com), or for $40 per day at Aloha Grove Surf Shop (84 Ocean Ave; 732-263-0100, alohagrove.com) in Pier Village, the city's commercial center.

Where to eat/drink: Ease your sunburn with cocktails at Avenue (23 Ocean Ave; 732-759-2900, leclubavenue.com), a cool, gleaming restaurant and club in Pier Village. But be prepared to wait; on Friday and Saturday nights the line trails down the boardwalk as Bennys (the local term for seasonal tourists) wait to dance all night on the fireplace-studded roof.

If you’d rather hang with the locals, head to Brighton Avenue, a small commercial strip lined with pretty shops, restaurants and bars. Mix Lounge and Food Bar (71 Brighton Ave, 732-932-9100) is an artistic martini bar catering to a wide-ranging crowd of friendly locals. Or, a bit farther down the road, find Jack’s Rib and Ale House (149 Brighton Ave, 732- 870-8800), a classic local dive.

Where to stay: Ocean Place Resort and Spa (1 Ocean Blvd; 800-411-7321, oceanplaceresort.com) is an enormous business-class hotel replete with a tiki bar, a pool and outdoor dining options. Summer weekend rates start at $399 for rooms that include two queen-size beds.

YOU HAVE TO SEE…
Pier Village is an expansive, beachfront development, made possible when the government bought out scores of local residents through eminent-domain laws. While the project has fostered an undercurrent of quiet, spooky hostility from certain locals, it has also brought in delightful seafood restaurants like McLoone’s Pier House (1 Ocean Dr; 732-923-1006, mccloones.com); upscale boutiques like Jenna and Molly (24 Centennial Dr, 732-222-7766) and Nirvana (66 Centennial Dr, 732-222-7004, shopnirvana.com); and serene day spas like Aquamedica (16 Laird St, 732-222-8611). Pier Village also offers organized entertainment including Movies Under the Stars, Steel Drum Sundays and a Friday Night Concert Series (Learn more at piervillage.com).