Heading west from Ridge Avenue on Devon Avenue takes you to Chicago's Indo-Pakistani neighborhood. If you'd like to sample a curry, try on a sari or ogle gold jewelry, this is the place.

Andersonville, along Clark Street north of Foster, is a neighborhood in transition from Swedish to Middle Eastern. Where else can you pick up a jar of lingonberries and a freshly baked bag of pita bread!

Visitors can travel the world on one of the city's 20 different Neighborhood Tours, which start at the Chicago Cultural Center each Saturday morning.

Number 8: Festivals, Parades and other special events

There's always something special happening in Chicago. The Printers Row Book Fair June 5 and 6 five tented blocks in the historic Printers Row district and showcases the nation's most diverse booksellers displaying new, used and antiquarian books for sale. Annually the Book Fair offers more than 90 free literary programs.). The Gold Coast Art Fair is Aug. 6-8, Chicago Air & Water Show Aug. 20-22, and many, many more.

Ethnic parades and festivals are a Chicago trademark. The annual Midsommarfest is June 12-13 in Andersonville, including Old-world Swedish traditions (such as the dance around the Maypole). A parade celebrating Puerto Rican Day marches along Columbus Drive from Balbo to Monroe on June 19.

Number 7: Food

More than 3.5 million people visited The Taste of Chicago last summer. You might want to visit the world's largest outdoor food festival this year (it's June 25-July 4 in Grant Park). Admission is free - you just pay for what you eat.

If you'd rather do your dining in restaurants, the city has thousands of choices (between 7,000 and 15,500 - depending on who's counting). Editors of the Robb Report magazine named it "America's most exceptional dining destination" in 2003.

Tops is the award-winning Charlie Trotter's in Lincoln Park There are only three dining options each evening - set menus of about eight courses each. Each selection, varying with the seasons, is exquisite. Order a flight of wines to go with your choices, and the prices hit the stratosphere (but worth every morsel and sip).

The emblematic Chicago dish remains more down to earth. Deep-dish pizza has been drawing diners to Gino's East and Pizzerias Uno and Due for decades. (CONTINUE...)