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Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Easygoing, liberal Amsterdam has never entirely shed its reputation as a hippie haven, even with an economy that has moved far beyond this cliché. It's surprising how many people still think of the city as caught in some rose-tinted time warp of free love, free drugs, free everything. The heady heyday of the '60s and '70s -- if it ever existed to the extent legend and the soft-focus afterglow of memory would have us believe -- has given way to new millennium realities.
Prosperity has settled like a North Sea mist around the graceful cityscape of canals and 17th-century town houses. A tour of the burgeoning suburban business zones provides evidence enough of the new priorities. The city government has worked assiduously to transform Amsterdam from a hippie haven to a cosmopolitan international business center, and there seems little doubt it is succeeding.
Fortunately, it has not been completely successful. Amsterdam is still "different." Its 740,000 citizens, bubbling along in their multiracial melting pot, are not so easily poured into the restrictive molds of trade and industry. Not only do "free thinking" and "anything goes" still have their place, they are the watchwords by which Amsterdam lives its collective life. Don't kid yourself, though. All this free living is fueled by the wealth a successful economy generates, not by the combustion of semi-legal exotic plants.
A side effect of the city's concern with economics and image is that youthful backpackers who don't wash much, stay in cheap hostels, and think smoking hash is the high point of the city's cultural life, are no longer quite as welcome as they once were. When they come back in 10 years with a salary that allows them to stay at a good hotel, buy tickets for the Concertgebouw and the Muziektheater, eat in a Japanese restaurant, and splash out for a diamond or two, why then, everything will be different.
Still, all is far from lost: You can smoke hash all the livelong day if that's what you want. More important, you can enjoy Amsterdam, its culture, history, and beauty, without stretching the limits of your credit cards.
Amsterdam has been drawn to a human scale. Few skyscrapers mar the clarity of the sky and the populace mostly walks or bikes from place to place. The historic center recalls Amsterdam's Golden Age as the command post of a vast trading network and colonial empire, when wealthy merchants constructed gabled residences along neatly laid-out canals. A delicious irony is that the placid old structures also host brothels, smoke shops, and some extravagant nightlife. The city's inhabitants, proud of their pragmatic, live-and-let-live attitude, have decided to control what they cannot effectively outlaw. They permit licensed prostitution in the Red Light District -- as much a tourist attraction as the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum -- and the sale of hashish and marijuana in designated "coffeeshops."
But don't think most Amsterdammers drift around town trailing clouds of marijuana smoke. They are too busy zipping around on bikes, inline-skating through Vondelpark, sunning on their porches, browsing arrays of ethnic dishes, or simply watching the parade of street life from a sidewalk cafe. A new generation of entrepreneurs has revitalized old neighborhoods like the Jordaan, turning some of the distinctive houses into offbeat stores and bustling cafes, hotels, and restaurants.
The city will quickly capture you in its spell. At night, many of the more than 1,200 bridges spanning the 160 canals are lit with tiny lights that give them a fairy-tale appearance. On some mornings the cityscape slowly emerges from a dispersing mist to reveal its treasures.
Amsterdam doesn't merely have style, but content too. Besides the many canals and bridges, it offers up such delights as the Jewish Historical Museum, the Rembrandt House Museum, the Waterlooplein flea market, the floating flower market, antiquarian bookstores, brown cafes (the Dutch equivalent of neighborhood bars) and gin-sampling houses, and chic cafes and nightclubs.
Perhaps Amsterdam's greatest asset is its inhabitants. Many speak English fluently and virtually all are friendly to visitors. Plop yourself down amid the nicotine-stained walls of a brown cafe to enjoy a beer or a jenever (gin), and you'll soon find yourself chatting with an amiable Amsterdammer.
Between dips into artistic and historical treasures, be sure to take time out to absorb the freewheeling spirit of Europe's most vibrant city.
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