With her glistening canals reflecting the facades of classic 18th-century homes, her boisterous sing-along nightlife, and her libertine attitude -- not to mention 10 years of legalized gay marriage -- Amsterdam delights even the most casual visitor. No wonder it's been one of the gay epicenters of Europe for decades. And when Amsterdam's shenanigans seem to have hit a ceiling, she reinvents her foundation as a liberal-cool destination with a new crop of designers, neighborhoods, and eats.

Sure, Amsterdam had her share of the downtown (at one point only one gay bar was still open), but things have been ramping up. New initiatives have seen the light of day, most of the gay bars and clubs have come back, and trendy eateries have jumped into the fray where former hotspots once stood. In short, the city's gay scene seems to be its lively self once again. The beautiful people frequent the upscale bars of the predominantly gay Reguliersdwarsstraat. Friendly locals lounge over beers at laidback watering holes along the Amstel River and the adjacent Halvemaansteeg. The leather crowd frequents the Warmoesstraat, in the heart of Amsterdam's red light district, while charming gay cafés and neighborhood hole-in-the-walls stand serene on quiet Kerkstraat. As it's not a huge city, many people wander from one venue to the next, consequently with a lot happening in the streets.

In recent years, the city has also taken great effort in building new hotels, even going as far to have a city-council-appointed "Hotel Pilot" to urge their construction. And they did, by the design dozen. But what keeps Amsterdam a truly contemporary gay capital isn't so much its taste for the fast life as something fresh: the city's ascendance as a Euro style center and it's capacity to surprise. Bike through the string of new man-made islands in the Eastern Harbour, browse Marcel Wanders's witty housewares at Droog, shop the quirky fashion boutiques of the Nine Streets area, prowl the art studios of the revitalized NDSM shipyard, or sample the organic plates in De Kas's glowing greenhouse dining room, and what you'll see is a blooming renaissance. Suddenly spawning an exuberant wave of top chefs, designers, and futuristic architects, along with whole new neighborhoods, Amsterdam has reverted to its roots, as an urbane burghers' city with a fine eye for beauty and the brawn to keep pulling itself out of the sea.