On past visits to Chicago, I discovered its magnificent architecture, wandered through neighborhood’s enclaves of cultural diversity, and waited as my wife took advantage of the city’s reputation as a shopping Mecca.

This is why, during my most recent trip there, I focused on a different way to experience the Windy City. I sampled the more than 40 museums that serve as another claim to fame.

The natural place to begin is the lakeside campus that is home to three world-class institutions. A fearsome dinosaur and creepy mummies are among more than 22 million displays at The Field Museum. Sue, a 42-foot-long T-rex dinosaur that roamed Earth 65 million years ago, stands just inside the museum’s entrance door, her razor-sharp teeth fixed in a permanent grin. She is the largest, most complete T-rex skeleton in the world.

Elsewhere in the museum, the story of ancient Egyptian mummies is among films presented in the recently opened big-screen, high-definition 3-D theater.

A stroll through the Ancient Americas’ exhibit leads past an early re-created pueblo household, a life-size reproduction of an Eskimo semi-subterranean house, and introductions to the awe-inspiring Inca, Mayan and Aztec empires. A full-size replica of a 22-ton "sun stone" recalls the Aztecs’ very advanced understanding of the universe.

Not to be outdone in size and scope, the nearby John G. Shedd Aquarium houses the world’s largest indoor collection of sea life, including aquatic mammals, reptiles and amphibeans. The recently renovated Oceanarium immerses visitors in the coastal ecosystem inhabited by beluga whales, dolphin, sea otters, sea lions and other fish and invertebrates.

A Caribbean reef and Polar Play Zone are two of several realistically created environments. The Amazon Rising room dramatically demonstrates the change in water level, up to 30 feet, that alters the landscape and lifestyle of people who live in the vast rain forest.

After explorations of the Earth’s oceans and land, the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum transports visitors to far reaches of the universe. The Night Sky Live presentation offers a virtual trip through the skies, while 3D Universe is a musical journey to distant galaxies as you’re surrounded by soaring classical music.

Exhibits scattered helter-skelter throughout the museum combine fascinating factoids with fun. In the former category is a sign announcing that our galaxy contains about one trillion stars, and that of the dozen Martian meteorites known to have struck the Earth, two are at the Alder.

The "fun" category includes an opportunity to "drive" a model of the Adler Rover, which explored the surface of Mars in 1997. I also got a kick out of a wall-size image of the Milky Way with an arrow near one edge and the rather droll message, "You are here."

Returning from the Milky Way to the local setting, a stop at The Chicago History Museum provides a sometimes offbeat introduction to the city’s past and lifestyles. The collection boasts something-for-everyone variety. A timeline of economic activity in Chicago ranges from early fur trading to the famous stock yards to its current role as a major center of business activity. Among dramatic displays recalling the Great Fire of 1871 are household objects that were fused by the heat of flames.

Visitors may sit at tables in a colorful re-creation of a jazz nightclub to watch videos and hear music played by some of Chicago’s most famous past musicians. Not far away stand the Pioneer locomotive, the first train engine in Chicago when railroads made it a hub of manufacturing and trade in the mid-19^th century, and "L Car No. 1," built in 1892, the only remaining example of the original fleet of elevated cars.

Two ethnic groups are highlighted at much smaller museums. The Spertus Museum explores Jewish culture through artifacts imaginatively displayed on floor-to-ceiling shelves. This "open depot" arrangement resembles vaults where many museums store most of their items, hidden from visitors.

Many objects, including prayer shawls and an elaborately carved Torah ark, have direct religious significance. One area holds Holocaust material, much of it from concentration camps, and another displays objects related to Chicago’s Jewish immigrants. Viewers of all ages are delighted by an intricate dollhouse made as a token of thanks for the daughter of a woman who helped displaced persons in Eastern Europe after World War II.

It’s not surprising to find the Polish Museum of America in the city that’s home to the largest population from Poland outside of Warsaw. I learned that Polish immigrants arrived as early as 1608 to serve as instructors in the manufacture of glass and other goods.

A number of exhibits are devoted to leading Polish actors, military figures and politicians. An entire section is devoted to Pope John Paul II, with emphasis on his visit to Chicago in October 1979. Among displays from the Polish Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 are 120 delicately hand-painted Easter eggs, each an art treasure in itself.

Despite its variety, my itinerary merely scratched the surface of museum experiences available to Chicago visitors. Time didn’t allow stops at some of the leading art museums in the world, or other small but captivating neighborhood museums devoted to Mexican, Lithuanian, Swedish, Greek and Ukranian cultures.

Yet I came away with new-found knowledge not only about both our world and the universe, but also of a metropolis that often is said to be in many ways the most American of cities.

For more information about visiting Chicago, call the Office of Tourism at (877) 244-2246 or log onto explorechicago.org. FP