水城威尼斯被“低質量旅遊”淹沒

VENICE — “You guys, just say ‘skooozy’ and walk through,” a young U.S. 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!”

威尼斯——“夥計們，只需說‘借過’，然後穿過去，”一個年輕的美國女人向朋友發出指令。“我們沒時間了！”他們被困在由觀光客組成的擁擠人潮中。在威尼斯，這人潮堵塞了狹窄的街道，讓美麗的廣場水泄不通，還迫使這座極具魅力的水上城市的許多居民離開本島，踏上單調、乾燥的陸地。

Neither, the Italian government worries, does Venice.

意大利政府擔心，威尼斯的時間也不多了。

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

不應馬上下結論，不過，曾是偉大的海上霸主和商業中心的威尼斯，的確面臨着被一日遊觀光客征服的危險。

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 mashup of English, Chinese and whatever other tongue the mega cruise ships and low-cost flights have delivered that morning. Hotels have replaced homes.

如今，當遊客的方陣在運河上方的天橋上行進時，拉桿箱的輪子在臺階上滾動跳躍的聲音便是這座城市的背景音樂。從那些划着船，運送着忙於自拍的情侶的船伕口中，你仍能聽到零星的威尼斯方言。但通用語是一種外國語大雜燴，其中包括英語、中文，以及巨型遊輪和廉價渡船那天早上運送的遊客說的任何語言。居民的住宅已被酒店取而代之。

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.

意大利政府官員悲嘆於他們口中的“低質量旅遊”，正考慮限制可以進入這座城市或其地標式廣場的遊客人數。

“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.

“如果你是坐大船抵達的，下了船，你有兩三個小時，跟隨某個舉着小旗子的人前往羅馬廣場(Piazzale Roma)、裏阿爾託橋(Ponte di Rialto)、聖馬可廣場(San Marco)，然後就要往回走，”意大利文化部長達里奧·弗蘭切斯基尼(Dario Franceschini)爲他口中的快餐式旅遊感到惋惜，這種業態已經讓這個下沉的城市的情況變得愈發糟糕。

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

“意大利城鎮不僅美在建築物，還在於當地的實際活動、店鋪、工坊，”弗蘭切斯基尼繼續說道。“我們需要保存它的特質。”

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.

每年約有2000萬名遊客涌入威尼斯，讓這座城市的居民——不論還剩下多少——有被淹沒其中之感。各店鋪不得不往窗戶上放標牌，指明聖馬克廣場(St Mark’s Square)或里亞爾託橋所在的方向，以免人們紛紛跑進來問路。

The majority of the anxiety has centered on the cruise ships that pass through the Grand Canal, blotting out the landmarks like an eclipse blocking out the sun.

擔憂主要集中在穿行於大運河(Grand Canal)中的遊輪身上，它們遮蔽着一處處地標，就如同月球的影子遮蔽着太陽。

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.

這座城市裏還剩下大約5萬名威尼斯人——1951年的數字是17.5萬——他們組織起對抗“大船”的協會，還會售賣宣傳T恤，上面的圖案是帶有鋒利牙齒的遊船向漁民發出威脅。今年6月有過一場關於遊輪的非官方公投，參與投票的1.8萬名威尼斯人幾乎全都表示，他們想讓遊輪離開泄湖。

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

“這些船真成問題，”弗蘭切斯基尼說。他把船隻在聖馬克廣場前經過的情形稱作“不可接受的景象”。

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.

但這些船會帶來金錢，威尼斯已經不是昔日的貿易霸主，能掙到手的每一塊歐元對它來說都很重要。遊輪不只爲這座城市帶來收入，還順着一整條供應鏈創造着就業機會，讓機修師、服務生以及水上的士司機獲益。那些一大清早就換好條紋襯衫、把防曬霜塗抹在光禿禿的腦袋上的船伕，擁有穩定的客源。

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

威尼斯本地人很多都住在該市的城堡區(Castello)，一個離遊客雲集的聖馬可廣場足夠遠的地方，以便過表面上還算正常的生活。但也只是表面上。

“If you want to get some prosciutto, you can’t because the salumeria is gone,” said Tommaso Mingati, 41.

“如果你想要買點火腿，是買不到的，因爲熟食店消失了，”現年41歲的托馬索·明甘蒂(Tommaso Mingati)說。

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’s becoming a “Disneyland on the Sea,” Mingati said that the expanding empire of bed-and-breakfasts was now forcing people out of Mestre.

他家在這裏有一套小公寓，但像大多數前居民一樣，已經搬去了梅斯特(Mestre)，沒有誰會管那片內陸區叫“亞得里亞海的明珠”。在明甘蒂的母親爲這座城市變成“海上迪士尼樂園”感到遺憾之際，明甘蒂說，日益擴張的客棧現在正迫使人們離開梅斯特。

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.

所有這些提供牀位與早餐的地方，以及該市的大約2500家酒店，出產了大量需要洗滌的毛巾和牀單。威尼斯已經沒有能力做這件事了。於是每到黎明時分，就會有船隻將髒毛巾、髒牀單和垃圾運往特龍凱託島(Tronchetto)，那是一個人工島，也是來自大陸的卡車停泊之處。

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.

回程時，它們會載滿乾淨的毛巾，還有大量飲用水、食品、一瓶瓶橙色的柳橙苦酒——用以製作該市隨處可見的雞尾酒Aperol Spritz——以及在這裏用得上的其他任何東西。

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7月的一個週末過救贖節(Feast of the Redeemer)的時候，威尼斯人都會拿回對這座城市的主導權。他們紛紛從梅斯特趕回來，在大運河邊喝葡萄酒，等待觀看一場會讓紐約的格魯西煙花公司(Fireworks by Grucci)感到汗顏的煙花秀。

This year, the celebration coincided with the Venice 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.

今年的救贖節撞上了威尼斯雙年展(Venice Biennale)，後者把成千上萬來自全球各地的高端遊客吸引到威尼斯，欣賞最新的藝術、舞蹈和戲劇作品。當地人和這些藝術愛好者，已經結成了某種抗衡前進在聖馬克廣場上的人潮的聯盟。

“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.”

“我們提供了一種關於這座城市的可能前景的範本，”威尼斯雙年展主席保羅·巴拉塔(Paolo Baratta)一邊在雙年展總部的露臺上看煙花，一邊說道。他說，從遊輪中傾巢而出的那些人“並不關心威尼斯發生了什麼”。

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, like Venice in its slow winter months, a time warp to an earlier Venice.

晚上，很多遊客會返回遊輪，或者在黃昏晚餐結束後找地方休息。由此不僅暫時緩解了城市承受的壓力，還製造出一個與威尼斯悠長的冬季類似的時間扭曲效果，讓人得以重回早前的威尼斯。

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.

對我而言，這便是我在將近20年前的時候遇到的那個威尼斯，當時還沒有谷歌地圖，我會迷失方向，偶然走到看似荒涼或被遺忘的廣場上。入夜，兩名遊客在遠離市中心的一家寒酸的咖啡廳裏慶祝自己的婚禮，那場景並不過於甜膩，而是令人愉悅。

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.

那些迷人的時光一直延續到凌晨，遊客們起牀之前，聖馬克廣場上空蕩蕩的，只有一些鴿子和趕着去上班的早起者。

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.

那些時光——其間，地上的影子依然很長，光亮反射在泄湖和拱形窗上——讓我想起本來似乎對這座城市的狀態頗感沮喪的威尼斯人拉法埃萊·諾切拉(Raffaelle Nocera)，一邊在大運河上駕駛水上巴士一邊對我說過的話。

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

“如果你起得足夠早，”諾切拉說，“整個威尼斯都是你的。”

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

它會提醒你爲什麼它值得被保護，爲什麼意大利人一直在公開表明立場。

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

“今天是聖馬可廣場或裏阿爾託橋，”弗蘭切斯基尼說，“過不了幾年，問題可能就會蔓延開去。”