VENICE — “You guys, just say ‘skooozy’ and walk through,” a young American woman commanded her friends, caught in one of the bottlenecks of tourist traffic that clog Venice’s narrow streets, choke its glorious squares and push the locals of this enchanting floating city out and onto drab, dry land. “We don’t have time!”

Venice, Invaded by Tourists, Risks Becoming ‘Disneyland on the Sea’

威尼斯。“你们几个，说声‘借过’，就穿过来了。”一位年轻的美国女人对朋友们吆喝道，他们被困在游人如织的狭窄路段。威尼斯狭隘的街道和壮丽的广场水泄不通，人满为患。这座迷人的水上之城，当地人都被挤到了城外干燥灰暗的土地上去了。“我们没多少时间了！”

Neither, the Italian government worries, does Venice.

意大利政府担心，威尼斯也没时间了。

Don’t look now, but Venice, once a great maritime and mercantile power, risks being conquered by day-trippers.

但别急着下结论，可威尼斯，曾经是伟大的的海上霸主和商业中心，如今面临着被一日观光客占领的危险。

The soundtrack of the city is now the wheels of rolling luggage thumping up against the steps of footbridges as phalanxes of tourists march over the city’s canals. Snippets of Venetian dialect can still be heard between the gondoliers rowing selfie-snapping couples. But the lingua franca is a foreign mash-up of English, Chinese and whatever other tongue the mega cruise ships and low-cost flights have delivered that morning. Hotels have replaced homes.

成群结队的游人行进在城市运河上，拉着行李在路上颠簸，轮子撞击着步行桥台阶，这成了威尼斯的背景音。船上的情侣不停自拍，船夫摇着橹，他们嘴里还听得到些许威尼斯方言。可超级游轮及廉价航班早上播送着英语、中文和其他什么语言，混杂在一起，成了大杂烩。当地房屋都改成了旅馆。

Italian government officials, lamenting what they call “low-quality tourism,” are considering limiting the numbers of tourists who can enter the city or its landmark piazzas.

意大利政府官员抱怨这是“低质旅游”，他们正考虑限制城市或其地标广场的游客数量。

“If you arrive on a big ship, get off, you have two or three hours, follow someone holding a flag to Piazzale Roma, Ponte di Rialto and San Marco and turn around,” said Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister, who lamented what he called an “Eat and Flee” brand of tourism that had brought the sinking city so low.

“你坐条大船，下船后有两三个小时逛景点，跟着一个拿旗子的人去罗马广场、里阿尔托桥和圣马可广场，然后掉头回来。”意大利文化部长达里奥·弗兰切斯基尼说。他对这种“快餐式”旅游感到悲哀，认为那拉低了这座沉没的城市。

“The beauty of Italian towns is not only the architecture, it’s also the actual activity of the place, the stores, the workshops,” Mr. Franceschini added. “We need to save its identity.”

“意大利城镇不仅美在建筑，当地商店和工坊的生活也体现了美，”弗兰切斯基尼说，“我们需要保存其身份特质。”

The city’s locals, whatever is left of them anyway, feel inundated by the 20 million or so tourists each year. Stores have taken to putting signs on the windows showing the direction to St. Mark’s Square or Ponte di Rialto, so people will stop coming in to ask them where to go.

当地人，不管还剩下多少，都会被每年约2000万游客淹没。商店橱窗贴着指路标志，标出圣马可广场和里亚尔托桥的方向，以免游客纷纷进店来问路。

The majority of the anxiety hascentered on the cruise shipsthat pass through the Giudecca Canal, blotting out the landmarks like an eclipse blocking out the sun. (The one shown here isn’t even a big one.)

担忧主要是穿行在朱代卡运河上游船，像月影遮住太阳一样挡住了地标。

Some of the roughly 50,000 Venetians who remain in the city, down from about 175,000 in 1951, have organized associations against the “Big Ships,” selling T-shirts that show cruise boats with shark teeth threatening fishermen. In June, almost all the 18,000 Venetians who voted in an unofficial referendum on the cruise ships said they wanted them out of the lagoon.

1951年留在城内的威尼斯人约175000人，现在只有50000人左右，其中一些成立协会抵制“大船”，还兜售T恤，上面印着带有鲨齿的游船，暗示其威胁了渔民。今年六月，约18000名威尼斯人，这几乎是所有的威尼斯人，就游船问题举行非官方公投，表示希望游船离开潟湖。

“One problem is the ships,” said Mr. Franceschini, who called their passage in front of St. Mark’s Square “an unacceptable spectacle.”

“船是一个问题。”弗兰切斯基尼说道。他把圣马可广场前的通道称作“不可忍受的风景”。

But the ships bring in money, and since Venice is not the trading power of yore, it needs all the euros it can get. The cruise ships don’t just bring fees into the city, they also create jobs down a whole supply chain, benefiting mechanics, waiters and water taxis. The gondoliers who change into their striped shirts early in the morning and put sunscreen on their bald heads have steady work.

但游船带来了经济效益。威尼斯已不再是贸易霸主了，能赚到的每一欧元都不能放弃。不只游船给威尼斯带来收益，整个供应链创造了许多工作岗位，技工、服务员、水上的士都从中获益。船夫也有了稳定的工作，他们一大早就换上条纹衬衫，把防晒霜涂在光头上。

When a visitor, or at least this visitor, arrives at the Venice train station and encounters that iconic watery avenue, a strange sensation occurs of being in the Las Vegas version of Venice rather than in the real thing. Maybe it’s all the luggage, the shopping bags, the lack of Italians.

一名游客，至少这名游客，来到威尼斯火车站，看到标志性的水道，一种奇异感觉油然而生，似乎置身于拉斯维加斯版的威尼斯。可能因为到处是行李箱、购物袋，没什么意大利人。

Tourists looking to take home souvenirs — Venetian masks, toy gondolas, imitation Murano glass beads or bowls, striped “Venezia” sailor caps, assorted soccer jerseys, San Marco-themed aprons or purses from Italy’s luxury giants — are in luck. But it has gotten harder and harder to stumble onto a local boutique run by a young entrepreneur. The young are mostly leaving.

想带些纪念品回去的游客有福了，这里有威尼斯面具、贡多拉平底船玩具、仿穆拉诺玻璃珠和玻璃碗、“威尼斯”条纹水手帽、各式足球运动衫，以圣马可为主题的围裙或意大利奢侈品牌女包。可碰到一家年轻人开的礼品店，越来越难，年轻人多数离开了。

“It’s always harder to live here,” said Bruno Ravagnan, a 33-year-old local as he took a water bus packed with tourists carrying suitcases.

“住在这里越来越不容易。”33岁的当地人布鲁诺·拉瓦尼安说。他正搭乘一艘水上巴士，上面坐满了带着旅行箱的游客。

Many of Venice’s locals reside in the Castello section of the city, far enough away from San Marco Square, the center of tourist gravity, to enjoy a semblance of normal life. But only a semblance.

许多威尼斯本地人居住在卡斯特尔区，远离旅游中心圣马可广场，他们至少表面上过着正常的生活，不过是表面而已。

“If you want to get some prosciutto, you can’t because the Salumeria is gone,” said Tommaso Mingati, 41.His family kept a small apartment here but, like most former residents, had moved out to Mestre, the mainland section that no one has ever called Queen of the Adriatic. As his mother regretted the city becoming a “Disneyland on the Sea,” Mr. Mingati said that the expanding empire of bed-and-breakfasts was now forcing people out of Mestre.

“想买点意大利熏火腿，买不到了，因为没有熟食店。”41岁的托马索·明甘蒂说。他家在这里还有间小公寓，但像大部分曾经的住户一样，家人搬到了梅斯特雷，威尼斯城的大陆部分，这里从来也算不上“亚得里亚海的女王”。母亲心痛于威尼斯沦为“水上迪斯尼”，明甘蒂则抱怨，不断扩张的民宿正把人们赶出梅斯特雷。

All of those bed-and-breakfasts, and the city’s roughly 2,500 hotels, produce a lot of towels and linens that need laundering. Venice no longer has the capacity for such an undertaking. So, at dawn, boats carry the dirty laundry and garbage out to Tronchetto, an artificial island and parking lot for trucks coming from the mainland.

提供住宿和早餐的民宿及城里约2500家酒店需要换洗的毛巾、床单堆积成山。威尼斯没有能力完成这种艰巨的任务。黎明时分，船会把未清洗的衣物和垃圾运到特隆凯托岛。这是一座人造岛屿，从大陆开来的卡车停在这里。

In turn, they deliver fresh towels but also untold gallons of drinking water, foodstuffs, bottles of orange Aperol to make the city’s ubiquitous Aperol Spritz and anything else consumed inside the lagoon.

回程时，拉上干净的毛巾，还把大量饮用水、食品、用来制作该市随处可见的阿佩罗鸡尾酒的一瓶瓶柳橙苦酒等各类商品运到潟湖内。

One weekend a year, during the Feast of the Redeemer in July, Venetians take back the city. They flow back in from Mestre to drink wine on the banks of the Grand Canal and wait for a fireworks show that puts New York’s Fireworks by Grucci to shame.

每年七月份的一个周末，救赎者盛宴节期间，威尼斯人重新夺回威尼斯城。他们从梅斯特雷涌进城里，去大运河两岸喝酒，等着看烟火。烟火秀足以让格鲁奇家族的纽约烟火表演相形见绌。

This year, the celebration coincided with theVenice Biennale, which draws thousands of sophisticated, globe-trotting visitors to Venice to check out the latest in art, dance and theater. The locals and the art enthusiasts have developed a sort of alliance against the crowds who march on St. Mark’s.

今年，威尼斯国际艺术双年展恰好赶上盛宴节，吸引了成千上万见多识广的环球观光客，一睹当今世界最前沿的艺术、舞蹈和戏剧。但当地人和音乐爱好者已结成联盟，抵制圣马可广场上的人流。

“We are a model of what could be,” said Paolo Baratta, the president of the Biennale, as he watched the fireworks from the terrace of the festival’s headquarters. The people emptying out of the cruise ships, he said, “aren’t concerned with what happens in Venice.”

“我们就是威尼斯应有的样子。”双年展主席保罗·巴拉塔在节庆总部的集体看台上看烟火时说。那些从观光船鱼贯而出的人“不关心威尼斯发生的事”。

At night, many of the tourists return to their cruise ships or tuck in after early dinners. The result is a momentary reprieve but also, likeVenice in its slow winter months, a time warp to an earlier Venice.

深夜，许多游客回到了游船上，晚餐吃得太早就痛快吃顿夜宵。此刻的威尼斯才能喘一口气，和悠闲的冬日淡季一样，回到了从前的模样。

For me it is the one I first encountered nearly 20 years ago, before Google Maps, when I could get lost and stumble onto seemingly deserted or forgotten campos. At night, away from the city center, a couple of tourists celebrating their wedding at a divey cafe was not cloying, but charming.

对我而言，此时的威尼斯才是我20年前初见时的样子。当时没有谷歌地图，迷了路的我误打误撞，宛若走进荒凉或被遗忘的南美草原。晚上，在远离市中心的低档咖啡厅，一对游人情侣在办婚礼，那不会太甜腻，倒是令人陶醉。

Those enchanting hours stretched into the early morning, before the tourists stirred, when St. Mark’s Square itself was empty except for the pigeons and the early risers headed to work.

醉人的时光流淌，直到天明，游人还未起喧嚣，圣马可广场上只有鸽子和早起劳作的人。

Those hours, with the shadows still long and the light reflecting off the lagoon and the triforia windows, reminded me of what Raffaelle Nocera, who otherwise sounded depressed about the state of his city, told me as he navigated a water bus around the Grand Canal.

这段时光里，夜色仍未消退，灯火映在潟湖和教堂拱廊的窗户上，我想起拉菲罗·诺塞拉驾驶水上巴士行驶在大运河上时对我说的话，若非此时，听起来会因城市的现状而显得相当沮丧。

“If you get up early enough,” Mr. Nocera said, “you get all of Venice to yourself.”

“只有起得够早，”诺塞拉说，“整个威尼斯都属于你。”

It reminds you of why it is so worth protecting, and why Italians have been taking a stand.

这让人明白威尼斯为何如此值得保护，为何意大利人立场坚定。

“Today it’s Piazza San Marco or Ponte di Rialto,” Mr. Franceschini said. “In a few years it could be that the problem spreads.

“现在只是圣马可广场或是里阿尔托桥，”弗兰切斯基尼说，“可能用不了几年，到处都是如此。”

译者 徐方旭

退欧时代的“敦刻尔克”

梦断休斯顿 | 纽约时报

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