Berkeley is best known as the home of the University of California at Berkeley, which is world renowned for its academic standards, 18 Nobel Prize winners (seven are active staff), and protests that led to the most famous student riots in U.S. history. Today, there’s still hippie idealism in the air, but the radicals have aged; the 1960s are present only in tie-dye and paraphernalia shops. Berkeley is a lively city, teeming with all types of people, a beautiful campus, vast parks, great shopping, and some incredible restaurants.

But if there is one reason to make the trip it is the simple fact that you haven’t lived if you you haven’t had chocolate nibs by Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, California’s runaway-success chocolatier that opened its factory and retail-shop doors in Berkeley in mid-2001. During regularly scheduled free tours, visitors can not only taste the nibs (crunchy roasted and shelled cocoa beans), but also see how the famous chocolate company uses vintage European equipment. The factory is located at 914 Heinz Ave., Berkeley (510/981-4066; www.scharffenberger.com. From I-80 E take the Ashby Avenue exit, turn left on Seventh Street, and turn right on Heinz.