Place to shop: Commercial Drive, Vancouver, Canada

About this place:

Commercial Drive is the heart of Vancouver's Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood. This charismatic area features a diversity of people, housing and land use.

Neighbourhood is filled with a fascinating collection of ethnic restaurants and food stores, funky coffee bars and hangouts, unusual clothing stores and street activity. The "Drive" is known throughout the city for its cosmopolitan appeal. Its businesses are as varied as the people that run them.

Once commonly referred to as "Little Italy," many of the Drive's Italian residents have moved to North Burnaby and the Italian influence has broadened into a Latin one. It is still common to see men playing Bocce - a type of Italian lawn bowling - in Victoria Park.